Gentlemen of Fortune
by Wai-Jing Waraugh
Summary: Ten years culminate in a race against time with a ruthless enemy in pursuit. It will take more than Elisabeth's smarts, Jack's luck, and Cpt Turner's powers for them to succeed. It will take all the courage a 9-year-old can muster.
1. Prologue: The Mariner and the Message

**Gentlemen of Fortune****- by Wai-Jing Waraugh**

**I missed the scene after the credits of At World's End, so to console myself over Will and Elizabeth's fate, I wrote this fic. Spoilers for the last PotC film contained herein.**

**Rated K+, some morbid themes. But no worse than the films really. **

**Prologue - The Mariner and the Message**

All was quiet in the seaport town - almost unnaturally so. The only sounds were those of the bell tolling mournfully and mutely in the kirk tower, and the lapping of diminutive ripples on the sides of a weather-beaten vessel docked in the bay.

The ship _- Christabel_ her name - stood unnaturally still in the glassy water. No voices hollered, no arms creaked as they tugged on the rigging, no orders were barked, nor laziness admonished, nor any voice raised to incant a sea-faring ditty. The vessel was silent as one painted upon a painted sea.Only one noise tainted the untrodden deck of the ship; the rasping breath of a lone mariner, surveying his surroundings like a man in delirium. His eyes flitted crazily from the kirk's steeple to the harbour master's outpost to the distant hills above the sleeping township. A parched, blackened tongue licked lips which trembled with great agitation.

"Home," he managed to rasp hoarsely. "I'm _home_..."

He staggered across the deck in stupefied appreciation. The tip of his boot clipped a shipmate who appeared to be sleeping, slumped on the rotting boards. However, nothing, no protest of indignation, not so much as breath, issued from the man's lips. His body displayed no evidence of life - it was no more than a corpse. And it wasn't the only one. Corpses lay in piles all about the ship, in the galley, by the helm, even leaning precariously out of the crow's nest in a petulant attitude. The ship was manned by one live sailor; the rest were all dead.

The darkness of the night was illuminate by the moon's sudden appearance from behind a cloud. The scene became eerier still - shadows lengthened, dead men seeming to move in the shifting light. Then, as the light took on a softer quality, alighting on each bent head like a tragic halo, one by one the corpses did indeed move, and did more than move - they seemed to undergo metamorphosis from earthly flesh into intangible forms, until each man seemed made out of the same substance as the moonlight. One by one they got to their feet and stood in readiness, as though awaiting a captain's orders.

The one living man witnessed this change without surprise or distress; he had watched this unnerving transformation occur each evening for the last seven days. What did arrest his attention, as he traced the path of the moonbeams with his eyes, was the presence of a mysterious being perched upon the mizzen mast, between himself and the source of the light. It appeared as only a silhouette of a man, thrown into sharp relief. It was impossible to tell if he were indeed a man, or if he were really the shadows made incarnate, just as these dead crew members now appeared to be made of light.

This sinister shade was unmistakably a nautical man, judging by the outline of his clothes, from the heavy, cuffed boots to the wind-borne hair pulled in maverick wisps from beneath a bandanna around his brow. The exact features of the man, however, were indefinable in the darkness, his abstract form alone seemingly etched upon the moon like some pirate brand.

The lone mariner watched in fascination as this figure, like some dark marionette, raised his hand; as he did so, all the dead sailors moved simultaneously. Even the mariner, who had tended to the ship beside his dead kindred for the last seven days, flinched in superstitious awe as each man raised his hand and waved to the darkened shore. His own nephew, whose corpse stood beside him, turned his empty gaze towards the flickering lights perched on a bluff high up in the hills; the hut he had been born in. One by one the men paid their last farewells to their homeland; then each man rose like ether down from the deck and drifted, a miasma of souls, into the air. They streamed in a great cloud past the figure upon the mast; he watched them pass in a casual attitude, his hands clasped behind his back and his head slightly bowed in a respectful pose. The mariner watched his nephew's soul rise; the lad looked down at him, waved once, then turned his eyes towards the moon. As each man passed before the moon, he appeared to disappear into it. The great orb seemed to flare with excess light; then the night was once again calm, the darkness subdued. A new peace seemed to fall upon the _Christabel_. Before she had possessed the disconcerting quietude of a floating tomb; now she was merely a sleeping vessel, her sails fluttering restfully in the breeze, her rocking gait soothing in the calm waters. The ship was now at peace with itself, free from the uneasy souls of the dead.

The mariner was now seated on the deck, his parched mouth hanging open, staring up at the point of the souls' disappearance. The mysterious figure also watched the moon for a moment, then turned and looked down at him, starting him from his stupor with a hoarse gasp. As he watched in amazement, the phantom stepped from his perch and landed on the deck with nary a sound.

He advanced upon the mariner, who scurried backward, crab-fashion, cringing away from the sinister figure. There was a shrill squawk; a large mottled black and grey bird fluttered onto the man's shoulder. The mariner stared; he had shot at that bird himself with his crossbow and watched it drop at his feet upon the deck little more than two weeks ago. There was no mistaking its dark plumage, unnatural on an albatross - truly it was a bird of ill-omen...

This seemed confirmed by the glimmer of the knife the mysterious man produced and held aloft, the same moonlight maliciously catching its edge and giving it a sinister aura. The mariner found himself cornered against the ship's rail, dark waters at his back and unable to retreat further. His weak chin trembled visibly; his limbs, the flesh flayed from them by food deprevation, appeared affected by palsy.

He thought he heard a splash of oars and a ruckus of voices at his back - the pilot and his boy, come to investigate the vessel! - but it was too late for him to be saved, his mysterious assailant drew breathe to speak what would surely be the last words he would hear:

"You can't stay here. I need to tow this boat below to the locker, where she belongs. And you're not yet authorized to become a passenger."

The voice was quiet, almost curt; a voice that might be owned by any captain confident in his command, yet it sent a thrill through the listening sailor which he could not explain.

He stared more fixedly at the man who confronted him. Clues to his identity connected themselves in his mind - aiding the passage of dead men's souls...a once-dead bird for a companion...the locker...the _locker_... _his_ locker...

The man made a casual swipe with the knife. It severed a rope that was part of the ship's rigging; a minor aft sail, freed from its bonds, swung round and caught the mariner square in the chest, knocking him over the rail and knocking the air from his lungs in one heavy stroke. He hurtled through the damp air, then landed with a thud on what was part wooden deck, part living flesh, and part tri-corner hat.

"What the-?"

"Ack! What goes there?!"

"Geroff! Who the hell are you?!"

He had landed neatly in the pilot's boat on top of three unsuspecting men, at least two of whom swore loudly and freely in surprise.

He gasped, trying to recover his breath; the chill night air hit his lungs like a mouthful of cold sea water and he choked. The pilot's boy had begun to shriek terribly:

"A corpse! A corpse is alive!" The mariner was so skeletal after two weeks at sea without food that he might have very easily been mistaken for the living dead.

"Don't be daft! Foolish git!" the pilot roared, his ferocious tone masking his own uneasiness.

"Easy lad," said a third, calmer voice - that of the town's hermit priest, who had accompanied them.

The mariner took no heed of any of them. He had only thoughts for the strange man aboard the _Christabel_. He scanned the ship's deck above him, looking for the shadowy figure; finally he saw movement at the ship's prow. The phantom was securing a stout rope to the vessel's fore; his boot was braced against the rail and he was tugging hard at the knot. Satisfied that it was secure, he looped the loose end of the rope round his waist and stepped onto the rail.By now the other occupants of the longboat had noticed the mariner's preoccupation and also watched the dark figure's machinations; even the pilot's boy was silent. Now the mysterious man looked down at them all, sprawled in their tiny wooden boat, and gave them a curt nod. Then he dove straight into the water below with a gentle splash, leaving no mark of his passage other than the slack of the rope, which continued to follow him down.

The hermit crossed himself and began to recite a prayer for the drowned man's soul.

The mariner thought furiously. Not drowned, no, surely not if he was who he thought he was...the rope continued to disappear...rope...a _tow rope_...

With a startled squawk the mariner launched himself into a seated position on the bench beside the pilot's boy, seized the oars, and began to row like a man possessed.

The pilot's boy was in hysterics.

"Sink me! The devil knows how to row!" He laughed in an uninhibited, mad-sounding way that made the pilot shiver. The hermit obstinately continued to recite holy words.

"The devil, aye," the mariner grunted between oar strokes. "But not me; he 's takin' my ship, an' we've gotta move if we wanna tread on shore once more before we die."

All along as he panted through his work, the oars turning like water wheels, his eyes watched the rope. It continued down for a while, then stopped, remaining slack; it jiggled around like a sea snake dancing in the ship's shadow; for a moment it seemed still, but then, as the longboat drew halfway to shore, it began to grow taunt. The mariner's face turned a whiter shade of pale as it gave a violent tug on the ship and there was a mighty rumble, as if every timber of the _Christabel _was groaning in resistance. Slowly, she gave way; slowly, she began to lean forward in the water; then her prow dipped and plunged downward, the rest of her following at an impossible angle, almost perpendicular to the water.

All four man watched, mouths agape, as the ship dove straight downwards into the sea. The longboat was pulled along in her wake, so forceful was her descent; then as her bow disappeared beneath the waves the pull ceased, the water surged back towards the shore, and the longboat, men, oars and all, hurtled towards the land.

The mariner took up rowing duties once more and the boat sped towards the shore. At last they reached it, and the mariner staggered out. He fell heavily in the knee-deep water, then half-lumbered, half-crawled onto the land. He remained on his knees, felled by relief and exhaustion, thanking God and Calypso and Neptune and Poisedon, any ocean god he could think of, for allowing him to return home. His words were reduced to inarticulate, overjoyed sobs. The other three men climbed ashore and approached him warily.

The hem of the hermit's cassock came into the mariner's view; he clutched it with shaking hands and kissed it reverently.

"Sheave me, Father, cleanse this soul of its sins! Free me from the ordeal I brought upon meself!"

The hermit stared down at him in wonder.

"And what manner of man are you? What is it we've just seen?"

The mariner looked up at him, eyes bedewed him emotion, widened with fearful remembrance.

"I be the soul survivor of the _SS Christabel's_ crew, lucky to escape this ordeal with me life an' soul intact. Many's the time is th' past weeks since we left port that I longed for death beside me crew-mates, free from the guilt an' penance I was forced to bear. But now I'm free; and me crew-mates are free, passed on to the next world, and he's taken ol' Christie down to his ship's graveyard."

"He? Who is he?"

The mariner shivered and crossed himself, looking out again to the heavily rippling surface of the water, the only remaining evidence that the iChristabel/i had entered the bay at all.

"He as towed ol' Christie down to 'is locker; the devil of the sea, Cap'n Davy Jones 'imself."

And he crossed himself again with a superstitious shudder.

Somewhere else not too much later, in another night, on another ocean, a man leaned against the rail of a ship. A handsome Dutch fluyt she was, a vessel made for speed; but now she drifted languidly on the currents of a sea that appeared to be filled with stars, so brilliantly did it reflect the sky above; or did the ship in fact float upside down in the sky, which was reflected in the sea above it? It was no one's place to say, and no one, not even the current custodian of the locker, truly knew its nature. The ocean in all its forms was an elusive lady, her ways mysterious and her intentions unknown.

A great bird, its plumage the same dark, mottled hue as the ship's forlorn sails, perched on the rail at the man's elbow. A cord bound to its leg had been untied; a tiny vial attached to it had had both its sealing wax and stopper broken, its contents removed. The older gentleman at the helm watch the young man read his letter silently, his gaze knowing. The young man's brow was gently furrowed, his face suffused with a soft flush. With trembling fingers he held the letter to the place upon his chest where a man's heart resided; his head thrust back, he tugged off his bandanna and passed it over his feverish brow. His eyes were turned upwards, but they didn't see the stars that glimmered there; he saw a beauty that surpassed them, he saw only her face...

The helmsman felt a sad twinge in his heart, one of pity and longing on behalf of his companion. Obviously the letter's contents were of the most intimate nature.

The younger man returned to himself, turning the letter's leaves over in his hands. He had yet to read the last page. It was thicker than the previous pages, more blotting paper than notepaper.

What he saw there made him smile; the look in his eyes grew softer still. The fierce face of the captain gave way to the sensitive nature beneath. The look in his eye was truly tender, brimming with pride as he turned to the helmsman and held up the page for him to see.

The look was reflected in the helmsman's face; a silent tear slid unheeded down his cheek.

The message on the paper was simple; it was much spotted and smudged with ink, as though the hand that had written it had been unaccustomed to wielding a pen. The squiggly handwriting was that of a small child. It read simply:

tO fAthER

fROm wiLL turner

AgE 3


	2. Chapter 1: The Propietress of the Benbow

**Chapter 1 - Proprietress of the Benbow Inn**

"So there I was with the albatross shot dead at me feet, and the wind dead in the air, and all o' us stranded there dyin' o' thirst an' hunger. No one said nothin' or accused me o' killin' us all, but I almost wish they had, cos the looks they gave me...as they died one by one, me poor nephew among 'em, each look was another curse upon me soul.

"How long I lay there, the soul survivor yet barely alive, wishin' I'd die and pay for what I done to us all, I don't know. But finally, one night, a breeze came blowin' in and it started to rain real light. I guzzled down all the water I could find, wrung the sails down me throat I did, and even then it was barely enough; my tongue swolled up so much it filled me mouth and I couldn't get each mouthful of water down fast enough. That water tasted t' me ten times as good as Tortuga's best rum. An' that's sayin' somethun'.

"And as I was lyin' there, half delirious, or perhaps full gone mad, I dunno, I heard a voice speak outta nowhere. A soft, husky voice it was, like waves whisperin', and an accent like them islander girls, pronoucin' all the t's like d's.

"What will you 'ave of 'im?" it said. It 'ad to be a woman's voice, all purry-like, 'twas. "He's suffered some, but could suffer more. Do you want 'im to pay with 'is life for what he did ta you an' yours?"

"That's unnecessary," another voice said, a man this time, an' he sounded so serious it sent a thrill through me, cos I realized they was talkin' bout me. "He's free o' the plague, an' he has yet a good part o' his life to lead. I see no need ter take it from 'im yet."

"Yer soft," that first voice purred; it gave me the creeps, it sounded so sly, like it was teasin' the other. "Your predecessor was ten times da captain you are."

"Just because I'm not as cruel doesn't mean I'm any less o' a cap'n," the other one said.

"Won't take life, how sweet," the woman came in again. "Perhaps you're truly tryin' t' punish 'im, cos you realize now that some fates be worse than death? Perhaps you've seen too much o' life yerself? Without da one you love? D'you wish you'd died and saved yourself the trouble, Cap'n?"

"He didn' reply, an' I held me breath for the longest time, years it seemed, waitin' to see what'd be done to me; perhaps he'd decide t' torture me, cos surely by 'im an' his they meant the albatross I'd shot. Then finally the woman's voice said:

"So be it den; it's your decision. Enjoy the next seven years, an' do your job better den he before you. If not a good cap'n, sir, ya be a good man at 'eart." And she laughed like she'd made some great joke, an' that laughter ringin' in me ears was all I could hear, and the sound was so horrible, so savage-like, that I couldn' take it and I gone an' fainted on the deck.

"I woke much later cos the boat was rockin' and I thought we must be movin', we're blowin' free on the water, but I look an' there's the helmsman at the wheel, 'cept it wasn't him at all, he was see-through like a ghost! The shock must've taken years off me life! An' I look round an' the whole crew's like that, all doin' their jobs like it's nothin', like they're all live 'n well. So I gets to me feet and gingerly took the line next t' me nephew, and he don't look twice at me, we just haul it together. It's like I'm the ghost an' the rest are all alive.

"An' so we keep on for seven days an' nights, me sleepin' durin' the day under a sail while the rest of 'em lie like corpses round me, an' each night them comin' to life an' all o' us tendin' the ship like old times. There must've been witchcraft in that wind cos on the seventh night we come into port in me home town. An' while I look round, not believin' me luck and thinkin' I must be dead an' seein' heaven, I look up an' no, there's the devil sure as can be, the same man who I heard contemplatin' takin' me life standin' there in the riggin', like 'e was made outta shadows. An' when he raises 'is hand all the ghost men float off into the sky, an' I see me nephew wavin' goodbye to me, and then they're gone, like the moon swallowed 'em up. An then he jumps down an' knocks me clear off the ship, into the pilot's boat as 'e and the hermit come rowin' up, and jumps over the rail with a rope tidied to ol' Christie's fore. An' I rowed hard as I could, cos I seen 'e was about to tow it down under, and it almost dragged us all down after 'em.

"An' so I go home, and have to explain to me brother why 'is son ain't ever comin' home. I paid for it as well, cos every other night I wake up screamin' with dreams o' him that coulda killed me, with that albatross that I killed an' angered 'im with flutterin' on his shoulder like demon's wings, an' I warn every man as has a killin' lust in 'is heart that the cap'n roams the seas, in his fearful ship the Flyin' Dutchman, an' if ever he kills a man as more than 'e needs to t' save 'imself, they'll be dragged down to Davy Jones' Locker by the heartless man 'imself, like I almost done!"

There was silence as the man finished his story, then a boisterous voice rang out: "What a ruddy load o' bull!"

The entire table rang with fiendish laughter, the men banging their tankards on the table and baring their gold-mottled teeth in merry amusement.

"Devil's bird y' say? What'd you do, barbeque it on a spit? I known men killed for stealin' a bird, this one lady cook on Tortuga-"

"Davy Jones indeed!" another voice cut him off, leering at the storyteller with obvious skeptism. "Shadow on the brain is what y' saw! You been out in the salt air too long, Salty Sam!" he clapped the sheepish man on the back in a rather patronizing manner.

"A drink for your bad dreams! Drown 'em in rum! Another round o' drinks 'ere, lass!" He gestured to the bar. A woman of waif-like figure hefted a tray that looked too heavy for her easily on one arm and traipsed across the inn's barroom to deposit her load before the already grog-soggy clientele.

"Thanks, love," the summoner eyed the pretty lass as she distributed the bar's bounty. Such a slender figure…so dainty, so delicate and soft-looking…his hand crept close to the curve of a hip as she leant across the table…

A vicious backhand resounded off his cheek and knocked him off his stool, depositing him in a humiliated, rum-addled heap on the floor, both head and ego smarting. The room stopped dead in shock for a moment; then it erupted in tumultuous laughter until the rafters seemed to shake with the volume of it.

"Shame on you," two mates chortled as they dragged the offender mercifully to a quieter corner, both barely able to contain their own mirth. The man, though his cheek and pride still stung, looked with an even more enamoured gaze at the pretty woman as she eyed him indignantly, a self-satisfied smile on her lips.

"Our hats off to you, Liz!" a nearby man declared. "Would take it off to yer if I had one anyhow!"

"No one messes with the owner of the Benbow Inn!" another declared with admiration. "She may be a land-lubber but she hits like a sea-man!"

"I'll have you know I spent plenty of time at sea during my youth, Master Holmsworth," Elizabeth answered this comment, smoothing her hair and picking up the serving tray. "I had an entire fleet of men, pirates and brigands of the worst kind, answering to my orders, as opposed to a room of rowdy drunks trying their best not to break my property."

"An' how does such a fine girl like you remain without a sailor by her side?" a man asked her as she made her way back to the bar, his eyes suggesting more than his words did.

Elizabeth sniffed with dignity. "She has high standards, Master Forsythe. For a start, she likes a man who bathes."

The room chuckled anew at this saucy jest; the man sniffed at his rather ragged, stained garments and shrugged, as though he could see nothing wrong with their condition.

"Time for a song, perhaps, Master Forsythe?" a young boy asked, holding up a fife suggestively.

"A fine idea, Jim!" another patron of the inn declared.

"We have enough drink in us to oil our vocal cords!"

"Let's have a tune, then!"

"Play it, Jim, there's a good lad!"

The boy raised the flute to his lips and began to play a well-known sea ditty. Each man raised his voice and swung his tankard almost in time; the intermingling of voices gruff and slurred by rum was hardly tuneful, but made up for its lack of musicality with pure gusto.

The boy looked up from his flute and across the room to the woman at the bar. He saw what the others had missed when Master Forsythe had spoken, and what was now once again written on her face; a look of wistfulness had come into her expressive eyes, and the smile, though sweet, was one of sadness and longing, the jaw set as though she were holding an emotion back with much effort.

The song continued, and at its end the lad broke off playing to join the men in the final raucous chorus:

"Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me!"

On the final note the door swung open. In the awkward moment that followed the interruption, a man entered from outside. The man looked around with an aloof air at the inquisitory faces that eyed him up and down.

"I know that song," he said.

He advanced further into the room with a strangely unsteady, mincing kind of gait; he looked more like he was stepping out of a barroom rather than into one. As if to confirm that he was thoroughly intoxicated, he promptly tripped over a barstool and disappeared from view with a surprised yelp.

The throng quickly lost interest in this nincompoop and returned to the dishonest card games and dramatized reminiscences which made up their land-occupying pastimes.

"Alright there, mate?" a man with no front teeth and a crooked nose asked the sprawled-out newcomer, lifting him off the floor and onto a nearby stool with one massive arm. He grimaced as he removed his hand from the collar of the man's coat and a handful of fishy-smelling goop came away with it.

"Jack, what on earth are you covered in?" Elizabeth asked, wrinkling her nose at the fishy stench. "You're not coming into my barroom smelling like the contents of a whale's stomach."

"She likes a man who bathes," a nearby drinker who overheard declared, nudging his neighbour and nodding knowingly.

"You should be bottling every ounce o' goop you can scrape off me and selling it, love," Jack replied. "This is the elusive elixir of life I'm covered in! My skin already looks ten years younger!"

He raked his fingertips across this own cheek, sniffed the gooey stuff experimentally, then licked his own hand rather like a cat washing its paw. He pulled a face immediately afterwards, tongue lolling and eyes scrunching up in disgust.

"Could use a drink to get rid of the taste." He looked at Elizabeth expectantly. She ignored his request.

"If it really does make you ten years younger, you'll be the same age you were when you started this foolish quest. Are you saying you finally found the fountain of youth?"

"It was a fountain disguised as a rather disgruntled whale." He paused, his head cocked to one side as though a thought had just occurred to him. "Or else it really was just a whale. That would explain the fishy taste of this stuff." He licked his lips. "Now how about that drink? You don't still have a prejudice against rum, do you? Looks like you're keeping everyone here well-watered."

"No rum 'til you prove you can pay for it. And every other free drink you've gotten outta me these past years."

"Such a miser! Don't you realize I saved your life? At least twice?"

"You've drunk enough rum for ten lives!"

"You used to need saving a lot!"

"I had someone else to save me then!"

Both stopped dead, not daring to continue the conversation. Jack looked uncomfortable. Elizabeth looked teary. The big man with the crooked nose and no front teeth cracked his knuckles protectively.

"Uncle Jackie!" a young voice piped at Jack's elbow.

"Hey, Jimmy-Jim-Jim, me boy!" Jack tossed the lad a coin. "Give this to your mother and go get me a drink."

The boy peered at the coin. "Drinks cost double this."

"Is that any way to treat your Uncle Jackie?"

"Really, Jack," Elizabeth sighed. "Did you have to give him that ridiculous nickname? Now everyone's calling him that. His name's Will, like his father; not Jim."

"Ah, but you've already got one Will…more or less." Elizabeth opened her mouth; he continued hastily. "Need the distinction, you see. You've gotta think creatively. Otherwise everyone'd be called the same thing; Peter or John Hook-For-a-Hand or something like that. Pirates have no creativity when it comes to names. I once knew a man with one eye, one arm and no legs. Know what they called 'im?"

"No," replied Elizabeth, sounding bored.

"Larry." Jack stared into space as though he were thinking, trying to figure out the significance of the name 'Larry'.

"But why Jim? It doesn't sound a thing like 'Will'."

"His middle name's Reginald, isn't it? You combine Reginald and William, you get Gim. Or Wald." He cocked his head, considering it. "Sounds like some lace-collared gentleman's name; the kind of man who earns a living." He shuddered.

"Speaking of which, can you pay me for tonight's rum, ignoring all the other drinks you're yet to pay for?"

"I can pay in labour. I'll take guard duty and give Buck here a rest. A fine name, Bucky," he added, giving the man with the missing front teeth a companionable pat on the shoulder. Buck looked nonplussed.

Elizabeth regarded him for a moment, her arms folded. "Can I trust you to do a good job of it?"

"You trusted me ten years ago."

"I put up with you ten years ago – barely."

"You've had plenty of practice then, love."

Elizabeth considered, then conceded defeat, waving him towards the barman. "Fine; but one drink only. One of these days you'll fall on your face and knock your teeth out of your head. No offense, Buck."

"None taken," the large man replied good-humouredly in a deep baritone that lisped slightly through his gaping teeth.

Jack rubbed his hands gleefully together. He took a step towards the bar, and promptly fell over another stool.


	3. Chapter 2: A History Untold

**Chapter 2 – A History Untold**

Later, the bar closed and all the clients gone, Will was finishing stacking the stools on the tables. He looked around for his mother. She was at the front window, looking out at the distant ocean – a common attitude for her. His mother had always had a deep love of the ocean. His father was a pirate, he knew, and his mother had always told him she had been something of a ship's captain herself. Considering he had never seen his mother set foot on a boat and she was surrounded all day by drunken sailors telling exaggerated stories about sea voyages, he never knew whether to believe her or not.

She had that far-away, wistful look on her face again. It made him uncomfortable to see it there. It was a rather comfortable existence they had here in Port Royal – boisterous and noisy, full of drunks perhaps, but comfortable. The inn was a popular one, the rum free-flowing, the clients many and the tips generous. There were half a dozen rooms upstairs which were let, but only for three nights at a time – they didn't need shifty characters hanging around. They had money enough to live on, to buy a new coat or some leather-bound books for Will's lessons, new stockings for Mother on the first Sunday of every second month. But it was a stayed and steady existence, going nowhere. They acted as a host for a constant stream of sea-faring humanity, but were never fellow voyagers. Will wondered many a time what it would be like to leave upon one of the stately ships down in the docks, to feel the surge of the waves on the ship's bow as she plunged through them, in search of adventure and mayhem. Will was accustomed to mayhem, growing up in a working tavern; what he wanted was something new, some excitement, some exploration beyond the port he had grown up in, watching others come and go. He had been born on a ship, his mother had told him; perhaps the longing for open seas and rocking decks had grown up with him.

But whenever he saw that look on his mother's face, he knew he couldn't become a sailor, let alone a pirate, the most dangerous occupation there was. She had lost her husband, Will's father, to the sea. She spoke of him seldom, as though his memory hurt her to speak of. She sometimes received letters he assumed were from him, though he had no idea where they were sent from; he saw the same wistful look on his mother's face as she folded these letters and held them to her heart, a tear sometimes spilling its banks unnoticed to slide down her still-youthful cheek. And Will knew he could never leave her to worry if the sea would keep him from her as well. It would be more than her heart could take.

Right now she looked as though her heart were overwrought with emotion. She was staring out the window at the inky waves breaking in tiny crests down by the pier, half obscured in a greasy-looking fog that rolled down over the houses towards the water. As Will approached she seemed oblivious to everything else in the world except the ocean, so intently was she listening to its lapping waves. No, it was impossible to hear the waves this far from the docks; yet there was a beating sound. A flurry of feathers; a bird outside. She turned her head slightly to watch it disappear beyond the window pane, then heard Will's footsteps and turned to face him.

"Are you alright, mother?"

She smiled, but it was the same bittersweet smile she had worn earlier in the evening; a smile that held back tears.

"Yes dear, I'm just a bit tired. You'd better get yourself to bed, you have a lesson with Jameson tomorrow morning."

Will nodded obediently. Jameson was his tutor. His mother insisted on spending the money to have him educated in reading, writing and arithmetic. He thought his education was excessive, seeing as he would only ever need it to keep the inn's books and budgets. But his mother insisted. She'd come from a high-class background, and declared education a must for her son. It would help him make something of himself in life, she told him. Seeing as he expected his life to involve taking over the running of the Benbow, he didn't see how it was so important.

"Good night, mother." He bent his head so she could plant a kiss on his forehead.

"Good night, Will, my darling."

Had her voice shook as she said his name? Perhaps she really was just tired; but he wasn't convinced. He paused at the top of the stairs, crouching so he could look down at her. She continued to lean on the window sill, staring at the ocean. He heard her sigh wistfully. Feeling discontent on her behalf, Will continued down the hallway to his room.

He paused, as he did most nights, at a tall window opposite the doorway to his room. This window and the one in his mother's room overlooked a small courtyard behind the inn. Under a kind of rough shelter and beneath piles of rubbish, scraps of metal and stuff, was an old anvil, squatting in the dust like some long-forgotten treasure chest. Will wondered like he so often had for the last nine years where his father was and why he didn't come home. He had been a blacksmith before he went to sea; the anvil had been one of his tools of the trade. It had once sat where the bar was now downstairs, before his mother had spent the money left to her by Will's grandfather to add the upper storey, converting the forge into an inn with a large barroom downstairs and living quarters above.

Everything about Will's father had been pushed aside into a disused corner of his mother's heart. Yet she still thought of him; she still mourned his absence. Sometimes Will wondered if he should hate the father whose name he had been given, but who was never there for him and caused his mother so much pain. But he couldn't bring himself to, for his mother's sake. Whenever he had asked about his father when he was younger, his mother had always implied that the situation was so hopeless, so beyond all control of either parent, that Will couldn't help but feel that there must be a satisfactory reason for the family's separation. But Will was getting older; he had waited for more than nine long years without an explanation, had watched his mother pine for nine long, lonely years, and scepticism was starting to creep into his young mind and heart.

Will was distracted for a moment by a flash of light in his peripheral vision, coming from the opposite direction, out the front, through the window in his own room; he saw it through the open door behind him. Lightning perhaps? If a storm was coming in off the ocean, it might mean more clients for the inn, if it was severe enough to stop ships from sailing.

He jumped as he heard a soft thump in the darkness to his right; something pale appeared out of the darkness. A face, topped by a bandanna and followed by a mane of dreadlocks; Jack Sparrow.

"Uncle Jackie?" How had he appeared so silently, so stealthily out of the dark? He must've come from downstairs or the other side of the house, and in either case Will should've heard him coming; he was a renowned klutz. "What are you doing?"

"Earning me drink," Jack replied in a somewhat sullen tone. "Your mother's a hard task-master, I can tell you. Just got back into port after days of rowing, and she wants me to patrol the perimeter. Might as well don a tri-corner hat and ask me to call 'er 'Captain'."

Will grinned. That was one mental image he couldn't fathom – his mother in her demure frocks and barmaid's apron with a tri-corner hat on top. Although picturing her ordering Jack to scrub the deck required no stretch of the imagination.

"Did you really row all the way back? In a long boat?" Will had no idea where he'd been, but he assumed it was far away; anywhere away from here seemed far away.

"Of course I rowed! How else would I get here, sea turtles?"

Will's smile broadened. Uncle Jackie always said the silliest things.

"Good-night, lad," Jack said, patting him on the shoulder; Will was relieved to see he was no longer covered in whale goop. "Pleasant dreams."

Will had a sudden mad impulse; Uncle Jackie said crazy things, but somehow, he trusted his judgment; perhaps he was just eccentric enough to tell him the truth.

"Uncle Jackie," he called as Jack was about to mince off into the darkness, "You knew my mother before I was born, right? Then you must've known my father too?"

Jack turned back to him, looking surprisingly grave.

"That I did, lad."

Will drew breath. He felt the question he was about to ask was important, something he had wondered so often during his life, often as he looked out the window at the back courtyard. His mother occasionally told stories about his father, but these were coloured by a wife's favourable viewpoint. Uncle Jackie was seldom around often enough to ask him. Now he was here, for some reason, Will felt a need to know about his father. He was almost ten; there was a point in life where he needed to resolve this mystery that had hung over him all these years.

"What was he like?"

Jack considered for a moment, his head cocked to one side. Will feared he was thinking of a way to get out of answering the question, but finally he said:

"I didn't have a regular acquaintance with 'im, but from what I knew of him, he was the most honest, upright, honourable man to sail the seas, a true rarity among men."

Will felt a lump in his throat. It was how he had always thought of his father, from the little things his mother had said about him, but had never had anyone else confirm his beliefs for him. Uncle Jackie, though he was a boaster and a liar, was never one to sugar-coat a truth about anyone other than himself.

Not disappointing him, Jack went on to add: "He's also the second-best swordsman on the seas next to yours truly. Sometimes he can be too straightforward and too honest than is wise. And he has girly hair. But otherwise he's better than most people you'd meet anywhere; he's a true gentleman."

There was a quiet creak, the sound of a foot mounting the stairs; Elizabeth was coming up to bed. Not wanting to be caught asking questions behind her back, and sheepish for asking Jack something so foolish, Will retreated to his bedroom door. If he could've, he would've asked many more questions. But his inquisitive young mind was for the moment appeased.

"Good-night, Uncle Jackie," he hissed quickly at the retreating figure in the dark, "and thank you."

"G'night, mate," Jack replied with a grin, his steady footfalls no more than a gentle tap on the floorboards as he stalked down the hall.

He heard Will's door shut. He paused at the top of the stairs.

"That was really nice, what you told him."

Will hadn't seen because he had been further down the hall, but Jack had noticed Elizabeth standing at the foot of the stairs and had spoken louder for her benefit.

"It wasn't meant to be a compliment, love. Not from a pirate's point of view anyway. Pirates would rather be rich than honest, and they can never be both. Why don't you just tell him about his father yourself? The lad's curious, and he'll have to know soon."

"How do I tell him, Jack?" Elizabeth replied. She sounded close to tears, although he couldn't see her in the dim light. "He'll never believe me after all the stories these sailors fill his head with. Old Salty Sam and his tale of the devil of the seas! How do I tell him without him thinking I'm mad?"

"It's a mad world out there, love. You know that. You've seen more strange things these past years than a woman's supposed to see in a lifetime."

"But all he's ever seen of me is the land-lubbing tavern owner. He doesn't understand where his father is, _who he is_. It's too much for a young child to understand. There's a very real danger out there in that world, Jack. You know that. You've been to the locker and back again. I've tried to protect Will from the things I've been through, what his father's been through."

"So you keep him trapped in Port Royal all his life, like you might've been if yours truly didn't jump of a parapet at great risk to me own life to save you? Do you remember how dull life was for you before that?"

Elizabeth was very quiet, then she whispered: "I remember. I'm living it every day."

"You can't stop the lad from being himself. He's brave, resourceful, smart; he'd make a fine captain. Like father and mother, like son. You can't protect him from what he's supposed to be; and he's supposed to be a pirate. It runs in the family."

He paused, then added: "And just you remember who it was who sent me to the locker in the first place, Your Majesty."

Elizabeth made a noise that was half derisive snort, half sob, as Jack disappeared deeper into the house.


	4. Chapter 3: Contact

**Chapter 3 – Contact**

Reuben Swales knew he was dying. He knew it as surely as an anchor sinks in the swells.

His heartbeat was so reduced that he could no longer tell if it were indeed there, or if it were just the waves plucking at his torso, pulling him this way and that, each tiny tug seeming to go right through him. He wouldn't have been surprised if he were indeed dead and nothing more than sea foam floating on the crests of waves. He had lost all sense of feeling in his limbs; gone was the biting cold that had ravaged his flesh. He felt as though the water were rotting him swiftly away; the rest of his body below his shoulders might not even exist any longer, so complete was the numbness which had come upon him. The ocean's heavy embrace it was, like a death shroud falling over him.

If this was indeed death, he wished it would hurry and finish the job. How long he had remained like this, he did not know; til kingdom come it seemed. His ship had been looted, his mates thrown overboard, bleeding, to die in the water, or run through with wicked knives and sabers where they stood. Reuben had had the misfortune of not being mortally wounded before he had fallen overboard. His last survival instincts taking over, he had clutched onto a piece of driftwood from his own ship, the _Demeter,_ and clung on, hopeless though this last desperate clutch at life had been. Not wounded seriously enough to bleed to death, too weak to make for the ship's wreck and pull himself out of the water, by the time he had prepared himself to end it, his fingers had been too frozen to release their hold on the plank of wood. And so he had been condemned to die slowly of exposure, too high in the water to drown quickly and mercifully.

The sun was sinking slowly towards the horizon. The night, and the chill it brought, came down on his head like a knife.

_Please, end it,_ he pleaded of the shadows. _Don't leave me here for an entire night. If you're to do me, do me quick, an' do me now._

The encroaching shadows made no reply. He watched the sun sink towards the sea in a glorious wash of crimson clouds. _Like a dying sailor,_ he thought ironically. As he watched it sink, he felt himself sinking; no, not his real self, for the water did not rise up to meet him. A part of him were sinking; his life perhaps, his soul. Whatever chains bound him here to this corpse on this wretched piece of wood were finally sinking under their own weight. He could feel his own life sinking within him, as though his body had lost its corporal form and his heart was beginning to drop right through him towards the ocean floor.

_Down to Davy Jones' Locker,_ he thought wryly to himself. _Just like me mates._

He watched the sun fall steadily lower, expecting his own death, feeling it race with the sunset, race to end before…_what?_

The last mortal glory of the sunset disappeared from the sky, and as it did, so did Reuben Swales' life vanish from his body.

But not his consciousness. The blank eyes that stared after the dying embers of the sunset's fire were watchful still. And they saw, as the sun was eaten up by the ocean's dark maw, a flash go across the sky, and seemingly right through himself and the rest of the world, though it remained on the distant horizon. It was like lightning, but a strange sickly hue; like the last flash of sunlight a drowning sailor might see before he was buried beneath the waves. A light stained the colour of the ocean, it was.

The infamous Green Flash.

As the light illuminated the sky it seemed the whole world jolted in place; he couldn't tell if the world moved or if it were he himself. He felt giddy, as though he were falling free; ridiculous, because the ocean was right there beneath him, supporting him. Perhaps it was the ocean that jolted, yet still seemed perfectly level, the ripples continuing across its surface uninterrupted.

Then the light was gone as quickly as it had come; its sudden absence was perhaps an even greater shock than its appearance, for it took all the remaining daylight with it. Night had fallen impossibly swiftly upon Reuben, his makeshift raft, and the floundering wreck of the _Demeter_.

It was a night eerily lit by flickering lights. Reuben swivelled his head, his neck stiff from being stuck in the same position for so long, and looked around him.

Strange, glowing forms were floating in the water around him. His first impulse was that they were a group of large, luminance jellyfish; then as one drew closer he not only saw that they had human form, but he recognized a face. Why, that was his cousin's best friend, he had been best man at his wedding; and that was the cabin boy, poor lad, who he had last seen as nothing more than a scraggy head of hair and a blood stain tossed in the murky water. As each drifted past, he recognized more and more of his crew mates. Some were strangers whom he had never seen before. Yet all of them had a strange ethereal glow about them and were deathly white, like ghosts. A thought occurred to Reuben; he looked at his own hands. They appeared to be made of the same ghostly material. He considered testing to see if one hand would pass through the other like smoke. Then he thought better of it.

So this was what one became after one died. He kicked his legs experimentally and stretched his arms. Before he had been tossed overboard a knife had gone into his left side; he had felt the jarring impact as the blade had hit his rib and slid out again. Looking round now, though, the wound beneath his arm pit was gone; the pearly fabric of his ghostly vest was unmarked. It was as though he had been given a new body made of moonlight.

A large, dark shape moved just beyond his line of vision. Reuben turned and saw a stately ship drawing alongside him. How it had appeared so suddenly and so silently, he had no idea. He admired its form with a professional appreciation. So streamline, like a knife in the water. There was something quaintly old-world about her, a delicateness and decoration far removed from the solid, purposeful English watercraft he was used to. She looked like a Dutch _fluyt_ he had seen once in a European port…

A man was standing at the rail, calling out into the night. Reuben wondered if he were speaking only to him; then he realized he was speaking to the men floating in the water as well.

"Come, me hearties, come! Permission to come aboard is granted t' ye! Come, come, we'll take ye where ye need to go!"

Reuben raised himself to his knees upon his raft with little effort, then got to his feet. As soon as he did so, he felt something pull him upwards, like an unseen line around his waist. He was rising upwards towards the ship's deck without a rope to aid him. He saw numerous other folk ascending in the same fashion; there was the cabin boy, looking much fresher than he ever had in life with his moon-like glow, gazing reverently up at the magnificent vessel he was drifting towards.

The ghostly horde reached the rail and stepped easily over it onto the deck. They stood around casually, awaiting orders which were instantly expected, though no one said as much.

"Welcome," the man who had first spoken said, addressing the assembly of ghosts. "Welcome aboard the _Flying Dutchman_."

No one said anything, but an unspoken thrill went through every phantom present. The legendary Dutchman…all who went to sea and anticipated a death at her machinations had heard of her, and it was agreed that no vessel of the mortal realm could match her. Her design was beyond compare, her sails filled with the favour of Calypso, her helm guided by the devil himself…

If this man was Captain Jones, Reuben decided, he was hardly the monster the old stories described him as. Some reported he had the claws of a lobster, others the body of a sea serpent, even that he resembled a large squid on the body of a man. This man had a weather-beaten face, as though he had seen one storm too many, but he remained perfectly human-looking and seemingly amicable enough. This conclusion brought to the fore of Reuben's brain certain rumours…rumours of a full-scale pirate war fought ten years ago against an armada of boats from the royal navy…of two ships fighting within the heart of a maelstrom…of a man defeating a monster, and becoming he whom he had slain…

"We be more than willing t' take ye to that which you fully deserve to go to," the man in charge was saying. "You're all good, honest men, servin' the sea as your only mistress. And she rewards them 'o give her their love; she's not so harsh a mistress as she seems. Every man here will be given the rest 'e rightly deserves. Until then, look lively; the Dutchman has an unfixed crew, and you all will be hers tonight. Think of it as a last farewell to the life you led, and do yer work as well as you ever did in life. Now, to your stations if you please! Man the rigging! Unfurl those sails! You men, man the capstan! Tack that line down!"

Each man performed his duty with just as much enthusiasm, if not more, than he had in life. The entire crew operated at optimum efficiency. Never had a ship run more smoothly. It was a strange sight, watching brigands raise sails beside a naval captain, a Frenchman in his powdered wig and velvet frock coat toiling on the capstan beside a sailor from the Orient with his high mandarin collar and embroidered robe. No ship like it could've existed in the mortal world without a full-out brawl erupting beneath her sails; yet here, every man was united by the fact that he had been conquered by the ocean.

Reuben, tacking down a line near the rail, looked out over the water and gasped. It was as though the ship was sailing through a sea of fireflies; starry light parted as she passed, the water gleaming in twinkling, satiny folds. It was as beautiful as it was ethereal; a ghost ship manned by a ghost crew, sailing on a ghostly sea.

A tiny hand pointed out at the sea of starlight; that of a young boy clad in a long robe almost like a dress with a starched, upright collar, a long jet pigtail hanging down his back. His gesture was for the benefit of a young fair girl dressed in chiffon flounces which mirrored her ringleted hairdo. She stood transfixed at the rail as she watched the glittering waves pass them, she and the young boy sharing a moment of delight.

The Frenchman and the Chinaman working side by side at the capstan shared a prideful look of understanding that only one parent could understand from another.

Reuben grinned to himself. It was a sight that warmed the cockles of his heart.

"Mister Swales?"

Reuben turned, and if it weren't his own Captain Kirby Tate who addressed him, the very man who had so gallantly defended the Demeter's helm and died like a true captain upon the boards of his own ship. He looked ever as competent and alert as he had in life. With relish, Reuben answered him with a rather military stand to attention and a respectful "Sir!"

"The captain of this fine vessel would like a word with you. He'll see you on the quarterdeck."

Reuben gave a nod and mounted the stairs to the upper deck with some trepidation. A tête-à-tête with Captain Jones, the scourge of the seven seas and the nightmare of every sailor…despite his favourable impression of the ship and her inhabitants, Reuben still had some reservations. He had heard too many rumours, and the childhood fears from his bedtime stories were too deeply ingrained in him for him to think of Captain Jones as a dead sailor's saviour just yet.

The man who had hailed him aboard was at the helm, steering her course with a casual, yet masterful attitude. Was this the legendary Captain Jones? He caught the man's eye; the man nodded toward someone who stood across the deck, a little behind him. Reuben eyed this man with the utmost attention.

He was dressed in a coat as dark as a cormorant's wing, stout boots upon his feet. Every hue in his attire was ebony, from trousers to shirt to the bandanna tied round the hair that wandered in windborne wisps from beneath its confines. A steely sword with an ornate silver hilt hung at his waist; he seemed accustomed to its weight, and the sword appeared to have borne the brunt of many a fight, its scabbard chipped and criss-crossed with cuts from other blades. Though the brow was set and leant his face a certain brooding quality, the mouth was sensitive. The cheek beneath the light shadow of stubble appeared yet youthful. Reuben could not help but stare; the captain of legend was but a young man of barely thirty years! Yet he wore his garb with a weight of authority; his shoulders were square, every nuance of his pose self-assured and upright. This was a man in command of himself and his ship.

What caught Reuben's eye was a rather angry-looking scar across the man's chest, just below the collarbone, visible above the button of his shirt. It looked like it was long-healed, yet it made Reuben grimace. It was positioned right above the man's heart. More old rumours floated back to Reuben, of a battle won against incredible odds…of a legendary villain slain…at the cost of one man's dreadful sacrifice…a newly married woman left alone without her husband…

The man held a wrist aloft; perched upon it was a bird of strange shape and plumage. It was large, bigger than a gull though similar in body, yet its feathers were a dull black, as though its owner had styled it after his own garments. Tied to its leg was what appeared to be a small vial, inside of which something white was visible…a sheath of paper perhaps…

"Find her for me," he told the bird, his voice soft, yet more commanding than coaxing. He swung his wrist upwards, and the bird dutifully ascended. It turned in the air in a great arc, then unexpectedly flung itself with great force into the sea.

Reuben stared in wonderment at these strange happenings. The captain seemed perfectly content with this behaviour; he inclined his head in a satisfied way, then he turned to face Reuben.

"Mister Swales?"

The voice, though softened by youth, contained a hard note of seriousness which sent a strange thrill through Reuben as he stood before the man's steely gaze. He answered with a proper "Yessir, Cap'n sir" and stood to attention. The captain had a strange fearsome quality about him that made you want to impress him.

"I have some questions for you," the mysterious young man continued, waving him forward with a slightly more companionable attitude. "It concerns the violent circumstances of the pillaging of your ship…"

_She had seen it!_ Her heart beat double-time as she watched Jack disappear deeper into the house, then turned and hastened down the hall towards her room. She'd seen it, the flash against the horizon, which a man giving the sky a cursory glance might have mistaken for a bolt of lightning…but Elizabeth knew better…

She paused outside the closed door to Will's room, pausing in the lamplight, Jack's words resounding in her head…

_"Why don't you tell the lad? He's curious, and he'll have to know soon."_

_No,_ Elizabeth decided. Not tonight. She was not feeling up to the task. Tomorrow perhaps. She knew what was waiting for her now.

She entered her room and closed the door. She felt suddenly alert; her heart was still pounding, her breath coming quicker than normal, or cheeks suffused in a radiant glow. She looked truly alive and beautiful now; she was not the propietress of the Benbow Inn, but the young Elizabeth Swann, standing on the deck beneath a fluttering skull-and-crossbones pennant, watching the horizon and daring it to show her some challenge against which to test her mettle.

Her expectant gaze fell upon the window. Yes, there it was; the familiar flap of wings she had become accustomed to hearing, and eagerly expected each day at sundown. She would watch each fluttering shadow with hope similarly fluttering in her chest, hoping it would be _him_…

She threw open the sash and let the bird in. It was a large seabird, yet it seemed to have seen dyed by the smog constantly emitting from the port's myriad chimneys, its feathers were such a dull, sooty hue.

"Hello, Swoop," she addressed it by name. "What news do you bring for me from the locker?"

The bird regarded her intelligently, it's head cocked to one side in an attitude that for an instant seemed a comedic parody of Jack Sparrow's perpetually-perplexed mannerism. It hopped towards her rather like a dog approaching at the summons of its master and obediently extended a leg towards her. Tied to it was a tiny vial, the contents of which made Elizabeth's heart leap at their sight – the pages of a letter, rolled and carefully sealed against moisture with both a sturdy stopper and a coating of wax.

With gentle hands, trying to curb her eagerness as she undertook the fiddly work, Elizabeth untied the cord. Swoop, free of his burden, alighted upon the bed head and squawked pleadingly. Elizabeth dutifully offered him a pickled herring from the pocket of her apron. He took it delicately in his beak. She waved him onto her nightstand to devour it without smearing her sheets with fishy oil – she'd had enough of foul-smelling goop for one day.

With a small letter opener handily kept on her dressing table, Elizabeth broke the seal and removed the papers with fingers which impeded themselves with their own eagerness. She held the leaves to her cheek, inhaling their scent; it was one she savoured, one of salt spray and oil lamps and sealing wax, and a hint of _his scent_…

She parted their folds reverently, eyes alighting on the scrawly writing with a feverish energy, devouring every word. She was completely engrossed in their meaning, captivated by page after page, until finally at their conclusion she heaved a great sigh, part in satisfaction, part in sorrow that they had come to an end. She held the letter to her quickly-beating breast with a hand that quivered with unrestrained emotion. The beautiful eyes were bedewed, the lips painted with that same sad, sweet smile.

It was only then that the sound of a boot squeaking on floor boards reached her ears.

She turned abruptly. A man stood in the open doorway; the door she had so carefully closed behind her.

"Hello there love," he said, the sardonic leer on his face present as well in his voice. "Enjoy your letter?"

She opened her mouth to cry out; he was on her in a second, one massive hand flying to her throat with unerring accuracy and putting a rather gentle pressure on her windpipe. Yet it was uncomfortable enough to allow the cherished papers to fall to the floor at her feet. Elizabeth found herself scrutinized by a single crazed eye; the other socket was covered with a rather tatty-looking eye-patch, from which the edges of an old scar protruded.

"I hope for your sake, girly, that that letter told you the location of a certain sea chest, cos if yer don't know already, you'd better be finding out fast. Yer husband left you certain things which I find o' great value to meself, and I intend to leave with 'em tonight, else I leave yer corpse for yer son to find on the morrow. Once he manages to untie 'imself, that is."

The hand thrust her backwards; she fell back upon the bed with a gasp which replenished her stifled lungs, bouncing off onto the floor. Swoop gave a petulant cry and abandoned his meal, escaping out the window.

He advanced upon her again. The dreamy woman in love had disappeared; she looked a bedraggled, cornered woman as she crouched, her dishevelled skirts spread about her.


	5. Chapter 4: The Night Visitor

**Chapter 4 – The Night Visitor**

Will struggled desperately against the rope that bound him to the post at the head of his own bed. His grunts of exertion as he strained his arm against the rope's biting grip were muffled by the rag wound into his mouth, gagging him.

He still couldn't believe the events which had played out in what had become a most bizarre evening. He had entered his room, only to find his window gaping open and a dirty, one-eyed pirate lying in wait for him. He'd yanked Will into the room and shut the door behind him. Will had heard Jack's footsteps dwindling down the hall – he longed to call out, but the man's hand firmly covered his mouth and the painful grip on his arm intimidated him into silence – then he had heard Jack speak briefly with his mother; then as his footfalls had departed, hers had approached. Will had watched the light of the lamp she carried appear beneath the closed door, had felt his captor tense beside him, had watched the swaying shadow of her skirt linger before his door, and had prayed to any god who would listen – to Calypso, goddess of the sea whom his mother and father both so deeply respected – that she wouldn't come in and have the intruder spring upon her from within the darkened room. Finally, after what had seemed a suspenseful eternity, during which Will's mind had run in panicked circles round itself and his heart had thudded in his ears, he had seen the light continue on down the hall. He had heard her bedroom door close behind her.

Will had found himself both relieved that for the time being at least, she was safe, and fearful that he would now have to save himself from this situation he was in. At the sound of the closing door, the brigand had shot Will a sly look; Will had read malicious intent in that single eye, and had known at whom it was directed.

A sudden slap to the side of his head had momentarily dazed him; moments later he had found himself lashed to the bedpost, unable to move or cry out.

The brigand had raised a finger to his lips as he had eyed Will with a look that chilled his young heart; it was a look that spoke volumes about this man's nature, a look that told Will that he had murderous intent, and that he would take bloodthirsty enjoyment in the carrying out of this night's work.

"Be a good lad and keep quiet while I have a word with yer mother," he had growled in a ragged tone, his voice like a cold blade at Will's throat, such was the way it made his blood thrill. Then the man had gone out and closed the door behind him, leaving Will alone in the dark; Will's heart had frozen in terror within his breast as he had heard the man's stealthy footsteps creeping down the corridor towards his mother's room.

And Will had been able to do nothing but strain against the ropes as best he could. He straightened his elbow and thrust his arm downward as far as he could, tighter into the knotted cord; he felt it dig painfully into the muscle of his upper arm. He wriggled around a bit, manoeuvring his arm to where the ropes felt slackest, then strained downwards again, wrenching his arm against the knot.

He thought he heard a cry and muffled scufflings in the next room. He prayed it was his own imagination letting his fears play tricks upon it. The sound added new impetuous to his efforts. His arm inched downwards…his fingertip touched the top of his pillow…one more thrust and his hand shot underneath it…again, his fingers roaming blindly over the mattress…he had felt it, _there_…

His hand shot under the pillow, ignoring the pain shooting through his upper arm and focusing on gripping the cool metal beneath his fingers…_he had it_…

All those years of Elizabeth telling her son to sleep with a pocket knife under his pillow became justified in that one moment.

His task was far from over. Now he was straining in the opposite direction, trying to reach the rope with the edge of the blade. He felt the knife's point hit the bedpost and guided it downwards, to where the ropes began; leaning forward to give his elbow the leverage it needed for the work, he began to saw at his bounds, listening hopefully to the sound of the sharpened steel grating against the rope's tough fibres. He could actually hear the cord fraying…he felt the rough edge of the split fibres against his wrist…his elbow ached from swiveling at an awkward angle, his arm tiring under the force he concentrated on that tiny point behind him…he couldn't tell how far through it he was, he could be half way or only a fraction of the way through…he kept at it diligently…

As he listened intently to the sound of the blade sawing at the rope, he heard another sound from the room next door, this one hardly muffled; it was a loud bang. This was no figment of his imagination; it was accompanied by the acrid smell of gunpowder.

Will stopped sawing in disbelief. The illusion of the peaceful existence of his nine-plus years came crashing down around him. The woman who had been his sole guardian and mentor throughout his life…_Mother_…

Tears stung his eyes; he closed them stubbornly, refusing to give in to pessimistic thoughts. Perhaps it didn't mean that, perhaps there was still time, perhaps if he hurried…

His efforts redoubled themselves. Suddenly the ropes burst undone and he jerked forward, freed; the severed cords fell at his feet. He ignored them, dragging the gag from his mouth and trying to take stock of his situation. The sound he had heard…what did it _mean_…what could he _do_…

His hand slid down the side of the mattress, seeking another piece of steel. His hand found what he was looking for in the dark, a silver handle; his hand gripped it and pulled firmly. The sheath remained wedged between the mattress and the bed frame; the sword slid out in Will's hand. It had been found among the many scraps in the workspace downstairs before the inn had been established. The label tied to its hilt at the time had identified it as a sword made for a nobleman's son which had never been delivered. It had been one of the last pieces Will's father had made, after he had taken over the forge as an apprentice succeeding his master, and before he had married Will's mother. His mother had given him some fundamental fencing lessons over the years. The moves he had been taught seemed hardly orthodox, probably not useful for actual combat, Will thought despairingly; and the sword was only intended for practice, so it wasn't terribly sharp. But it was the only thing he had to rely on at this time.

He gripped it in his hand, staring at the dull reflection he saw glimmering in the dim light. His mother had inscribed the initials of both the sword's maker and owner upon the base of the blade with the point of a nail: _W.T._

Staring at the reflection in the sword's silvery sheen, he saw a young boy's face, his own; yet somehow it was transformed and seemed older, twisted by a savage look, a look of desperation and anger. Looking at that face above the inscribed initials made him feel stronger.

_Father,_ he thought, _lend me strength in this sword you made, to protect mother in your absence_. Not daring to spare another moment, he slammed open his door and tore down the hall as fast as his feet could carry him, terrified at what he might see…

At the doorway to his mother's room he stopped short and stared, open-mouthed, in disbelief. Smoke issued from the barrel of a just-fired pistol.

A low voice murmured: "That felt good."

There was a rumble of rapid footsteps behind Will, but he ignored them, so transfixed was he by what he saw.

"Alright," Jack panted. "I heard the pistol. I'll earn me damn drink. I'll save you one more time, but I swear this is the last- …oh." He stopped abruptly and joined Will in staring.

Elizabeth stood over the fallen body of the brigand, a bullet hole through his one good eye, which was now just a bloodied socket. The still-smoking pistol was in her hand; as they watched, she blew the wisp of smoke away and hitched up her skirt, tucking it back in the garter round her left leg.

"That definitely felt good," she said again, her voice a relaxed, self-satisfied purr, as though she'd just unleashed ten years' worth of frustrations on the unsuspecting pirate.

Jack winced. "Ouch, mate. Bet he never saw that one coming."

Elizabeth heard him and looked up. As her eyes fell upon Will staring at her she paled visibly, but she addressed Jack, her tone of voice just as casual and bantering as it sounded on an ordinary evening in the barroom.

"Too slow, Jack. You used to be quicker to jump to the defence of a damsel in distress in your younger days."

Jack sighed. "It was never something I was that eager to 'jump' at, love, no offence meant. It was a role I just seemed to get dragged, coerced, or threatened into. Well, I can see I'll be getting no more rum from you any time soon." He turned and headed back down the hall.

"I'm fine, by the way," Elizabeth called after him. "Perhaps on the way out you could wake up Buck, tell him to make sure this fellow had no friends prowling about, and then tell him to come move this body off my hearthrug."

"Yes, your Majesty," Jack muttered over his shoulder; he might have been talking to himself.

"Take care, lad," he added, addressing the shell-shocked Will. "I can see exciting times ahead for you. Your mother was always a lass with a talent for getting innocent men into trouble. Somehow she managed to drag me into it as well."

A few moments later, his distant footsteps could be heard descending the stairs.

Shaking her head at his unceremonious departure, Elizabeth turned a rather mournful gaze upon her son.

"You're hurt," she said, her tone anxious, stepping close to him and gently fingering the bruise that was rapidly appearing on his left temple, courtesy of the pirate's vicious slap. The wound throbbed beneath her gentle touch; he pulled away. That hand she had touched him with…the same hand that had fired a pistol and killed a man…

"I'm fine," he muttered, his tone sullen. His eyes were crinkled up, his lower lip quivered; he looked close to tears. Yet the chin tilted up defiantly as he glared at her.

She'd worn that gun who knew how long…and she'd never told him about it…all those stories she'd told of her own escapades on the high seas…his mind began to sort through them, wondering which ones were true. He had thought she was his mild-mannered mother, a barmaid and owner of a tavern, given to telling wild stories about her imaginary younger days. Will had never had cause to believe any of her tales. Now what she had just done went against everything he had believed her to be; he felt like this sudden emergence of a stronger character within her was a personal affront, as though she had deceived him, lied to him, all this time he had known her, all nine years of his life…

Elizabeth withdrew her hand, bringing it awkwardly to her side. She didn't seem to want to meet Will's eyes. They stood for a moment in silence, neither really knowing what to say. Will was seeking a way to understand what had happened that night; Elizabeth was seeking a way to explain to him what had happened over the last ten years.

Will's attention went instead to the dead man on the floor. His mouth was still open, as though even in death he was surprised by his unexpected fate. Like Will had thought along with him, he had expected to easily maintain the upper hand.

"Who was he?" Will asked at last. He hated the way his voice shook slightly as it broke the silence.

"I don't know," Elizabeth said somewhat dismally, looked down at the dead man with indifference. She was handling this so well, with such unerring calm, Will thought to himself. "Just some petty thief, I suppose. A thief who believed the wrong story."

Will frown, confused. "You mean he thought the day's takings were kept up here?" He well knew that the money from the tavern was kept in a back room downstairs; it was hardly a secret. It was kept in the same room that Buck, their hired guard, slept in. No one could attempt to rob the safe without first tripping over him and being beaten to a pulp by his meaty fists. So far, no one had dared tried.

"No," Elizabeth said slowly. She seemed to be thinking things over rapidly, trying to overcome an indecision; her hands wrung the folds of her skirt distractedly, reflecting an inner turmoil. Finally she came to a decision, and strode purposefully towards the body. Will watched her warily, his stomach turning, wondering what she would do to it.

She merely kicked one of the corpse's feet aside, then carefully slotted her fingertip into a gap between the floorboard beneath the corner of the rug. She lifted; a section of the board two feet long rose out of the floor as she lifted it, leaving a gaping hole in the floor. She grabbed the edge of the board next to it, and lifted that one away as well, and the next. Then she reached into the resulting space beneath the floor and lifted out a small sea chest.

It was made of dark wood which shone greasily in the lamplight; it was carefully lacquered and sealed against the ocean, a sailor's chest. Elizabeth set it down gently, almost reverently, on the floor.

"Come," she said, motioning Will forward. He approached the sea chest slowly, wondering what was in it, why there was such secrecy around it. When Elizabeth motioned him to, he knelt down beside it.

Elizabeth dipped her head and pressed her ear against the chest's lid; she smiled, as though she heard some sound within it that satisfied her. It was that same smile she wore, that smile that Will always associated with his father…

"Listen," she said softly, her ear still pressed to the chest. Hesitating for a moment uncertainly, wondering what could possibly be in there to make a noise – a ticking clock, perhaps? – Will imitated her.

It took him a moment's concentration before he heard anything. Then a low, muffled thumped sounded through the boards and reached his ears. His eyes widened in amazement; it was a double beat, dull, yet powerful, reverberating through the chest's thick sides. It was followed a few seconds later by an identical thump-thump, it continued on seemingly endlessly…but that was impossible, coming from a mere unliving sea chest…it sounded almost – no, it sounded _exactly_ – like a…like a _heartbeat_…

Nights past came floating back to him, his last minutes before slumber terminating in a familiar story told to him often by that same voice that had just asked him to listen to the chest…he remembered that same voice speaking of another sea chest, belonging to the most fearsome pirate to sail the seven seas…belonging to a man honest sailors called the devil himself…and inside the chest, taken from his own person and carefully locked away, was his-

Shocked and appalled, Will fell backwards, staring at the unassuming sea chest in disbelief. His mother continued to kneel with her ear pressed to it; almost draped over it she was, her head resting on its domed lid and her hand gently caressing the glossy wood.

"You heard it?" she almost whispered, her smile softer than any he had ever seen on her face, full of tenderness. The woman with the pistol had morphed again into someone else he didn't know.

"What is it?" Will asked breathlessly, staring at the mere chest like it was some monstrous creature crawling up from the ocean's depths.

Elizabeth sat up. At last, she resembled the mother he knew; her face wore that shrewd, serious look he saw on her when she was doing the tavern's accounts or dealing with rowdy customers.

"You have to believe me on this, William Reginald Turner. A lot of things depend on you believing every word I'm about to tell you, no matter how unlikely they seem. I was wrong to keep everything from you up until now. But you're almost ten, and a lot of things are about to happen, things you won't understand and be able to deal with if I don't explain it all to you right now. You're growing up, becoming a young man; you're so like your father was when I first met him, when he was about the same age you are now. And from what I knew of him then, I know now that you can handle everything I have to tell you. Things are about to happen, scary things, things I have no control over. And you may have to deal with them for me.

"Now before I tell you anything, you have to make me a promise. If anything should happen to me – no, it's important," Elizabeth raised a hand to shush him as he gasped and opened his mouth to protest. "If anything should happen to me, promise me you'll protect this chest as best you can, and get it to the island in Shipwreck Cove before the end of the month, along with this key." She reached beneath the bodice of her dress and pulled a dark metal key threaded onto a piece of leather from beneath it. "Even if you have to row there alone, promise me you'll try to get there and give it to the man who is its rightful owner. Promise me."

The look she gave him now was deathly serious. Her eyes seemed to burn like glinting fires, as though urgent ferocity burnt within her, daring him to take up the promise. He looked at her long and hard, reflecting on the life they had shared together, all the things she had done for him from the time he was born, how hard she had worked to support him, all she had done to protect him, this evening's events included…

He was beginning to understand the seriousness of untold events, to understand why she had left things untold until he was this age. He swallowed, suddenly feeling years older. He didn't like the idea of anything happening to her, but he had to promise; it had to be important, getting this sea chest and its key to this island, since she asked him to do it so earnestly.

"I promise." His voice was firm, and sounded strange in his ears, like it belonged to someone else.

She smiled then, a different smile, though it was still sad. Intermingled in that smile was a fierce joy, a pride and affection for the son she had raised to be just as strong as his father.

"Good boy." She extended a hand towards him; he drew close to her and let her hug him tightly, the sea chest snug between them as they leaned over it in a firm embrace.

Her eyes were overly bright as she drew back again but her look was sombre and composed, the smile gone. His heart thudded harder in his chest as he looked at the seriousness in her face. His expression matched hers.

"Now I'm going to tell you everything, all about the past, about the battle with the armada. About your father."

Will felt a keen thrill go straight through him; his _father_. After all these years of wondering, of uncertainty. This mystery revolved around his father. He leaned forward intently, ready to listen.

A loud squawk in the still room startled him. They both turned; a large black bird was perched on the window sill. Will could see it wasn't a raven or a commorant despite its dark feathers; it was shaped just like a large gull or an albatross. Elizabeth gestured to it, and it fluttered down to land on the floor close to her. It lifted a fallen sheet of paper from the floor in its beak and offered it to her. She took it almost tenderly. The bird, seeming pleased with itself, hopped over to the pirate's corpse and tilted its head, examining it with one beady eye.

"It's alright, Swoop," Elizabeth reassured it. "He's dead."

Will was worried the bird would start to peck at the corpse; instead, it merely fluttered to the head of the bed, as though it were an accustomed perch.

"It's so tame," Will said in wonder, watching it look towards him as he spoke.

"Your father tamed it; it's his messenger bird. It brings me news of his happenings every once in a while."

Will's eyes widened again. Looking at the piece of paper in his mother's hand, he saw it was the last page of a letter, written in handwriting that was flourished, yet also strong, each letter clearly defined in navy-blue ink. The signature caught his eye; it was signed with a name that was his own, and belonged to only one other person he knew of.

Will wondered just how much he didn't know, and just how much he was about to learn. It seemed he had more than ten years' worth of secrets to learn in one night.

Elizabeth licked her lips and swallowed, pausing to collect her thoughts. She stared into space, her brow furrowed slightly as though in concentration. As though she were steeling herself for an ordeal she was about to undertake.

"It all began about ten years ago," she began. "Just after your father and I first became engaged, just after we first met Jack Sparrow. No matter what he says about me causing trouble, it was really him who started it all…"


	6. Chapter 5: Seaward Ho!

**Chapter 5 – Seaward Ho!**

Jack Sparrow wandered aimlessly along Port Royal's docks. He swaggered slightly, either from drunkenness or clumsiness. He couldn't remember which. Seeing as the flask at his hip was replenished at every opportunity, and he was also naturally ungainly, it could easily be either. Or both.

As he minced along he admired the graceful clippers moored to the pier. He felt jealousy burn in his chest. Or perhaps it was just the last swig of rum on its way down. No, it was jealousy as well. Too warm to be just the rum.

He thought of his beautiful _Black Pearl_. Could any ship here match her? That one was alright, but a bit heavier at the back. That one was far too large, too heavy in the water, almost a barge. That one had her masts too tall, compromising her balance and agility in the water. Perhaps that was his own trouble on land.

He reckoned if he had a cask of rum for every time the _Pearl_ had been stolen from him, he'd be perpetually drunk. Well, more drunk than usual. Damn that Barbossa! Imagine, the legendary Captain Jack Sparrow without a ship of his own!

Of recent times he'd had little to occupy himself with. First mate Joshamee Gibbs had retired to a remote corner of Tortuga to consort with the ladies and study biology; namely, the behavioural habits of sea turtles. Jack had remained there for a while, but when he ran out of money for grog, got sick of the constant brawls and sore from constant run-ins with past loves (had women adopted the face slap as their own version of the hand shake?) he had taken up a life of aimless wandering, hitching rides on whatever ship would take him (or he could stow away on), trusting his compass and hopping ship when the one he was on took him in the wrong direction. He wandered wherever fortune took him, or wherever he thought he could take a fortune. A rumour of buried treasure there, a coveted gem hidden on an island over there, a water spout that could be the fountain of youth there (he'd long ago traded in his map to a tavern owner for a drink).

Jack almost longed for some set purpose to occupy himself with. 'Almost', because usually as soon as he was given an obligation to fill or a task to do, he occupied himself with trying to get out of having to do it. And he had failed to get out of doing the last thing he had had to do – saving Miss Swann, now Mrs Turner. And if there was one thing he wanted never to have to do again, it was saving Mrs Turner.

"Mrs Turner, eh – who'd a' thought?"

In a rare display of agility, hearing Elizabeth's name mentioned, Jack darted back behind the stacked crates he had been about to pass and listened to the conversation taking place on their other side, his curiosity – and perhaps even concern – piqued by the few words he had heard thus far.

"'pparently she keeps a pistol under them skirts of 'ers. Hears hopin' old One-eye got a look-in before she snarked 'im."

Numerous course jests relating to the admirable figure of the said Mrs Turner followed this comment. Jack committed some of the finer ones to memory to be credited to himself. Delivered a safe distance away from Elizabeth, of course.

"Poor ol' Pewy! Shot through the other eye, I 'ear. Must be a damn good shot, that little barmaid. From One-eyed Pew to Blind Pew in the last moment of 'is life! Just as well she killed 'im with the one shot, or he'd be blindly sniffing out 'er blood! 'E was always sensitive about his eye, ol' Pew. Not that the rest of 'im was a damn sight prettier though, I tells ya!"

Jack rolled his eyes. One-eyed Pew? Blind Pew? Damn unimaginative pirates, why couldn't they call the man something more creative, like Blinky? Not that it hardly mattered now; the man was dead. Jack had seen him stretched out on Elizabeth's rug with his own – two – eyes.

"So what now?" a voice asked. "We ain't got the chest like the cap'n asked. What do we do?"

"Follow on, I guess. 'E gave first mate Anderson a list o' the ports the next ship leavin' fer the west will dock at, and we're to follow 'er out of sight. Apparently the Turners 'ave an agreement with the captain o' the _Lusitania_, they're to board as passengers on the morrow, an' they're headin' west, makin' a special stop at an uninhabited island-"

"T' meet 'im?!" a voice broke in. All conversation stopped.

Jack grinned to himself. He flattered himself that he was one of the few men on the sea in whom the fearsome Davy Jones inspired absolutely no fear. He'd bested the blacksmith-turned-pirate numerous times. And they were mates now. Sort of. He owed him for saving his life at the cost of Jack's own shot at immortality.

"We have t' follow on after the cap'n, in case he needs to bail outta the _Lusitania_ if things go wrong," one of the pirates continued. "Preparations need t' be made; as soon as the _Lusitania_ meets the horizon, we follow in 'er wake."

Jack heard the pirates amble off down the pier. He peered carefully around the side of the nearest crate. Identifying them by the sounds of their voices, he saw them board a nearby ship, a fine looking vessel built for speed. Jack admired her until he saw the unlikely name painted on her prow – the _Walrus_! This beautiful, sleek ship, the _Walrus_! Damn unimaginative pirates!

Jack hesitated, wondering what to do. She was a fine ship. But she was full of hostile, murderous pirates. But they could have a good store of rum aboard. But he had just told himself that the last thing he wanted to do was to get dragged into saving Elizabeth Turner yet again. And he'd always listened to himself. His multiple selves. Even when they contradicted each other.

His thoughts strayed to young Jim- er, Will. A good lad. His grandfather had been a good boatswain, loyal and honest throughout the mutiny. Foolishly honest. The elder Will unfortunately took after Bootstrap. Jack hoped the youngest Turner lad had inherited his mother's dishonest streak. He just might need it to survive.

Jack glanced around casually, wondering what to do and looking for inspiration. The _Walrus_' mooring ropes caught his eye. They were good and thick – probably thick enough to hold a man's weight by the look of them – leading out to the waiting vessel. They swung gently, drifting like over-sized spider's web, half obscured in the thick fog. Fog so thick, a man on a ship moored just 20 feet out might barely be able to see the shore. He'd more than likely have trouble seeing what was going on between land and his ship.

Jack grinned. Who needed to inherit dishonesty when Uncle Jackie was there to share all he knew on the subject?

* * *

A slight breeze stirred the sails of the _Flying Dutchman_. There seemed barely enough wind to move her, merely a tiny puff of air; yet she cruised along at a steady pace. Beneath her dark sails, the temporary crew were just making finishing touches to her preparations. Her sails were unfurled, her lines securely tacked down. No man had shirked his duty; she was well tended beneath the hands of these former sailors, each eager to prove himself an adept at his profession before his fellows.

One last time, nimble fingers knotted the knots. One last time, the men at the capstan put their backs into it. One last time, they scaled the rigging with as much ease as one strolled upon the deck. At last, all was done, there was nothing left for any man to do.

"Attention!"

At the helmsman's call, every man completed his final task and faced the quarter deck. A dark figure approached the rail above and faced the crew. Each man drew himself up a little straighter under the captain's scrutiny.

"Gentlemen," he addressed them, his voice low yet clearly audible, the only competing sounds the lapping of the waves on the ship's sides and the gentle flap of a sail's edge as it caught the breeze. There was something compelling about the captain; an aura to him, an impressiveness and sense of mastery that each man felt keenly as the he surveyed them from the upper deck.

"Gentlemen, you've all done your duties well. You're all mariners through and through; surely as the sun rises and sets does the salt water run through your veins. All these years – lifetimes, some of you – you have spent in treating the ocean and her patron saint, Calypso, with respect, until you met death either by her hand or in her presence. Now it is time for such loyalty to be rewarded. All your souls are free; move on with Calypso's blessing, and mine."

As he spoke these last words, he extended a hand and gestured towards the moon that hung, a great glowing orb, in the sky, or at least what constituted the sky in this place. The lunar body looked too large, far too bright. As he gestured to it, each man felt an upwards pull similar to that which had lifted him onto the _Dutchman_; they rose like a flock of great birds from the deck and drifted towards that celestial light.

There went the Chinaman, his son beside him, and the little French girl, her hand in her father's. Reuben Swales' gaze as he rose rested on the _Dutchman_ and her crew, then travelled beyond to look back the way she had come. There, a tiny model ship on the sea; the distant _Demeter_, the barque he had served so faithfully for nigh on fifteen years. As he watched she seemed to disappear into the mist-cloaked horizon; he could see the silhouettes of other wrecked ships against the smoky sky. She was going to the shipwreck's graveyard, to her own resting place, just like her crew. As they rose, Reuben Swales, Captain Tate, and each former crew member of the _Demeter_ gave her one final salute, honouring the ship which had been their home, their means of business, and their greatest love for so many years.

At last the final man was gone, swallowed up in that same light that their souls themselves appeared to be made of. The night seemed dimmer for their passing, though the moon's light graced the Locker and her flagship with just as much radiance.

'Bootstrap' Bill Turner left the helm to consult the captain. He was leaning against the rail, deep in thought.

"That Swales fellow, he couldn't shed no light on it?"

"No." Captain Will Turner, the current custodian of Davy Jones' Locker, had his brow furrowed in puzzlement as he considered the tiny scrap of paper in his hand. On one side it bore details of a ship's port visits, cargo taken on, weather conditions – it was torn from the logbook of the Demeter. What drew Will's interest were the lines scribbled on its back. They read:

_All that glitters ain't gold_

_Dead men shall tell no tales_

_Only one man can command_

_The Dutchman's fearsome sails_

Beneath this strange couplet was a large blot of ink, roughly circular in shape. This simple mark took on sinister significance in pirate folklore – it was the Black Spot, the pirate's death threat, dreaded by every sailor and more often than not followed by the enactment of the maker's intent. This sigil had been clutched in the dead captain's hand when he had died, and had thus accompanied his soul to the Locker. The good man had been quite unable to explain it, as it had been forced into his clenched fist after he was dead, and he had gleaned no information from his attackers before they slew him. The same went for Mister Swales, the last man to expire and therefore the man with the most opportunity to observe his attackers. Both men had been oblivious; they were honest and concealed no knowledge at Will's questioning, which must have been what the couplet's second line had meant. What the meaning of the rest of its cryptic contents was, however, Will had been unable to learn, at least from the _Demeter_'s crew.

"Who would give Cap'n Davy Jones, or Cap'n Turner rather, the Black Spot?" Bootstrap muttered, his voice indignant. The Black Spot was not a thing to be taken or given lightly, never in jest, and to give the Locker's guardian the spot, to give it to Death himself, as it were…

"I don't know," Will replied distractedly, his tone thoughtful. He allowed himself a small, wry smile. "Whoever he is, his penmanship is awful."

Bootstrap grinned to himself. His son was far more educated than he could've ever hoped to be, having left home at a young age to attain an independent life on the seas. He'd never meant to impose a similar life upon his own son; now his grandson had also been separated from his father by the ocean. It made Bootstrap's heart heavy to think of…if only he had made better choices, lived a respectable life…

_If you had, your son wouldn't be the strong man he is today,_ his mind reasoned with itself, as it had many times over the last ten years. _And he wouldn't have met the people responsible for the upbringing he had, far better than any you could've provided him with. He was brought up honest._ Central to this character development, Bootstrap knew, was the lass who was now also responsible for his grandson's respectable upbringing, daughter of the family who had helped Will on his path to adulthood all those years ago…his own daughter-in-law…

As if to aptly punctuate his thoughts, there was a loud splash and the surface of the water erupted as a large black bird burst upwards out of it.

Swoop ascended gracefully from the water, starry droplets falling from his feathers as he dropped from the air and landed obediently on the arm outstretched to receive him. Will stroked his feathered head, and Swoop's steely beak nibbled his fingers with equal affection.

Will had had the brilliant idea to employ a messenger bird after remembering the pet parrot belonging to Cotton, one of the _Black Pearl_'s crew members. Seeing the albatross with its unusual plumage pass over the _Dutchman_ during one of her voyages up top, he had shot it down, the dead bird landing upon the _Dutchman_'s deck. After sunset, as the ship had returned to the Locker, he had returned the dead bird's soul to its body, allowing it to come and go from the Locker as it pleased. He wouldn't be surprised if Calypso had sent the bird with the unusually dark feathers to him for his own use; it seemed the kind of mysterious, semi-amicable thing she would do for her new captain. Swoop, for his part, barely seemed to notice he was dead; though a smart bird, for all intents and purposes, he acted just like any ordinary bird.

Now he hopped upon the ship's rail and held out his leg, just as he had been trained to do. Tied to it was a tiny vial stoppered and sealed with red wax; inside at least one rolled sheath of paper was visible.

Bootstrap watched his son intently. Before his mood had been distracted, perturbed by the pirate symbol; now he stood straighter, his whole body tensed and alert, all his attention fixed upon that tiny vial and the hope that filled it.

Bootstrap put the thoughts of both of them into words. "This will be a far more pleasant message, I trust."

Will gave his father a grin and set to work at the cord binding the vial to Swoop's leg. Bootstrap did not fail to notice that though he worked carefully so as not to disturb the albatross, his fingers trembled ever so slightly in nervous anticipation and seemed to trip over themselves in their haste to reach the precious message within. Understanding just how much this letter meant to his son, Bootstrap withdrew further down the deck, leaving his son some privacy in which to read his love's missive, alone with her loving words.

Will unfurled the paper. As he did, a delicate aroma assailed him. Her scent…he knew she used perfumed paper for his benefit. What a comfort it was! Though no heartbeat was there to grow more rapid in his chest, his veins thrilled, and he knew that where his heart was, it was surely beating fit to burst; it was a wonder all of Port Royal couldn't hear it. His gaze was ensnared by the dainty handwriting, every word given the utmost attention. As he read, those words and that scent seemed to caress his senses, almost fooling him into thinking that she was there beside him, just like old times…

When Bootstrap returned to the quarter deck, Will was on the last page of the letter, having slowly, deliberately read each word with the greatest care. Bootstrap watched his eyes pass over the letter's final lines, then make another frenzied sweep, then another. His lips were parted, his eyes wide, the slightest of creases upon his brow; Bootstrap caught his breath, wondering if something was wrong at the Benbow. Then Will turned his gaze towards him, and his look told of such rapture, such exquisite joy and love, that Bootstrap's feelings eclipsed themselves, turning to eager expectancy.

"She's coming," Will said, his tone so quiet and soft, like the murmur of a distant tide; his voice was full of awe, almost disbelief. "She's leaving Port Royal for the rendezvous spot, she and her-…my son…they're coming to meet us…"

Will felt light-headed, his senses reeled…that perfume, those words, soon to become material, to be there in his presence… he almost didn't believe those words, almost didn't dare to hope…in less than a month she'd be with him again face to face, after ten long years…

Bootstrap Bill's heart swelled in his breast on behalf of he who could not feel it himself. His smile almost matched that soft, tender smile on the younger William's face, such was the way he felt his happiness along with him.

"Well then," Bootstrap said after a moment, during which the full importance of this news sank in. "What say we head up top then, eh, Cap'n?"

* * *

Will tensed as he heard footsteps approaching him over the cobbled street and raised his sword in a guard position. Seeing it was just his mother returning, he lowered it and returned it to the sheath at his hip. It was just the right length for him, as though it had been made for him; not so long that he nearly tripped over it as it swung from his belt, but long enough for him to hold his own in a fight against an adult. Theoretically, at least.

Though he knew little about swords, Will could not help admiring his father's handiwork. The decoration on the sword's hilt and sheath was beautiful, the balance of the blade excellent. His mother had carefully sharpened it before they had left the inn, testing it and nodded in satisfaction as blood welled up under her fingertip at the barest touch. Having this sword at his side filled Will with a bit more confidence, as though he carried with him a bit of his father's courage. Will knew his father was brave – he had fought with ruffians, been captured by cannibals, taken hostage by undead pirates – twice – and even faced down Davy Jones. Will wasn't sure if he could do all these things, but he wanted to be just as brave as his father, on the off-chance that he ran into similar obstacles during his sea quest.

"Thank you, Buck," Elizabeth addressed the hulking man at Will's side. "It's just Master Will and me from here. Here's the key to the inn; you're welcome to stay there. The accounts are taken care of for the next few months, though you'll have to find money for your own pocket, I moved the stash from the deposit box. Tell the boys the inn is temporarily closed; we should open again in a few months' time, when we come back with the master of the house. You're welcome to stay on then, if you haven't found a better way to occupy yourself before we return."

"Thank ye, ma'am." Buck lisped. He inclined his head to Elizabeth, gave Will a bashful grin, and lumbered off up the street, back towards the Benbow. Will waved to him. He liked Buck. He was a gentle giant, a trustworthy fellow. Also a most proficient guard. Will was sure he'd have no trouble taking care of the place while they were gone – no looters would dare cross the massive man.

"It's alright then?" he asked his mother.

"Yes, it's all sorted with the _Lusitania_'s captain. We sail tomorrow."

Will's heart leapt. The sea; finally, he would sail on the sea. He had been born upon it, lived by it for over nine years, yet had never sailed it – not on an instance he could remember anyway. With a grin, he raised the spyglass in his other hand and looked out at the port he would sail out of tomorrow, glancing at the proud masts bobbing beside the pier and wondering which one would carry them. He then guided the lens towards a spot in the harbour, beside a floating buoy, where he had last seen a large black bird hurl itself into the waves.

"He's not coming back up."

"No; Swoop is your father's bird. He'll stay down in the Locker until he brings us the next letter."

Elizabeth went to the large sea chest beside Will on the ground and opened it. She carefully took out the smaller chest nestled inside it, resting next to a sword, a pair of pistols and a dagger. She lifted the chest to her ear as though it was a large seashell, and she was listening for its song.

"His heart is beating faster," she said, smiling softly. "He knows we're coming."

Will's eyes widened. He wouldn't have believed that his father had taken the place of Davy Jones, and that his heart was in that very chest, if he hadn't heard the heart beat himself. He still found it hard to believe despite it. To think, after all these years of hearing incredible stories from the patrons at the bar, he would be a part of the greatest, strangest story of them all. If his mother hadn't been so deathly serious when she had told him, he would've thought she was making it all up in a bid to outdo the other tall tales that had been told over the Benbow's counter.

Come to think of it, though, it ran similarly to tales Uncle Jackie had told him. Not that that counted for much. Uncle Jackie had a habit of rearranging events to exaggerate his own prowess. According to Jack, he had battled Davy Jones' monstrous pet kraken with one hand tied behind his back, won, then sailed down to the Locker alone to take on Jones himself. His mother had assured him that that had not been the case.

But to think that it was true, that his father was the collector of dead sailors' souls…over the years he had invented many a scenario in his head to try and fit the circumstances around his father's absence, but this topped them all. To be cut off from your family for so long, lonely, unable to set foot ashore, surrounded by the souls of the dead, living – well, existing - in the Locker…it brought a lump to Will's throat to think of it. All that his father had endured, all he had sacrificed for his mother's sake; he understood now her sad, tender smiles and long-kept silence. Both parents had suffered in the absence of the other, beneath the curse of Davy Jones. And now at last, the ten years were nearly up…Will was going to meet his father before his tenth birthday, for the very first time…

It filled him with a mixture of incredible excitement and terrifying nerves. Would he live up to Captain Turner's expectations? Would his father be scary? Being the captain of the undead, he'd have to be at least a bit frightening! Will hoped he would be brave enough when he met him. He had thought everything over while his mother had packed, organized the inn, run a few errands, and left him in Buck's care while she visited a nearby lodging house. And after thinking about everything long and hard, Will had realized that he aspired to be like his father more than anything else in the world, and longed to finally meet him.

As Will thought these things and stood looking out at the sea, Elizabeth looked out at it as well, with different feelings in her heart. They stood at the end of a street where the _Lusitania_'s captain had his lodgings, near the town square. Elizabeth remembered this spot well; nearby was a small parapet which had once been part of a watchtower that had crumbled into the harbour long before Elizabeth had been born. Elizabeth used to use it as a seat as a child, staring out at the ships with the pirate medallion round her neck, dreaming of adventure. It was from this spot that she had - rather embarrassingly - fainted and fallen into the sea at the very start of all the upheaval in her life. It was also upon this spot that she and Will Turner had shared their first kiss. Her heart raced at the memory; she clutched the sea chest tighter, feeling the heart inside beating almost alongside hers through the wood. She remembered that day, when they had truly beaten together, when she had been in his arms…

This spot held the hopes and dreams of the life they had expected to share together all those years ago. They had often met here after their engagement, making plans for the future, just enjoying each other's company. Elizabeth had avoided this spot for years. It held too many hopes which had been dashed by the waves far below, too many dreams which as yet went unfulfilled. But she didn't mind standing here now, remembering. The fruition of those dreams seemed so near now. She indulged in them now, remembering old dreams, creating new ones. So strange, that what had started all those years ago was beginning again, right from this same spot.

To think, that a decade had almost passed since she had last held him, since they had become husband and wife…she almost trembled at the thought of having him there once again to hold, to have as her own with no expanse of water between them…and to have him meet the son Elizabeth had borne him for, well, almost the first time…

He would be proud of him, she hoped, just as she was proud of him, how he had grown up in her care to become an intelligent, headstrong and courageous boy. He reminded Elizabeth so much of his father…she wondered if he would see it too…

_He won't until you get to him,_ Elizabeth told herself. To the sea, to the sea, to the much-loved yet hateful sea, the sea that had kept him from her and would now take her to him…

She replaced the small sea chest in the larger one and locked it carefully with the key next to the one for the other, on the leather thong round her neck.

"Let's get going then," Elizabeth told her son, breaking off both her own reverie and his. "I need to change out of these impractical clothes, and then we can go find where the _Lusitania_'s docked. The sun will be up soon, and the sooner we're ready to sail, the sooner we'll be on our way to meet your father."

Elizabeth felt a thrill go through her as she said those words – _your father_. She was happy to see a similar reaction in Will as she said them; he lowered his spyglass and beamed up at her exuberantly.

"Let's go then! Seaward ho!"

It was a phrase they had heard many a cheerful sailor utter as they had left the Benbow's door. Now it applied to them; both Turners' hearts raced, pounding in time with the sea, the sea whose steady rhythm promised adventure, discovery, and long-awaited reunion…

Slinging their bundles over their shoulders, each with a sword made by the same maker at their hip and the large sea chest carried between them, they started on their way down to the pier, as the sky began to lighten in the east.


	7. Chapter 6: The Crew

**Chapter Six – The Crew**

Captain Simon Bellamy stood on Port Royal Docks, surveying the horizon. Was that a distant flash of thunder? No, couldn't have been, there were insufficient clouds for a storm. Must have been a trick of the rising sun on his eyes. Few other tricks escaped these eyes. He was a careful man, Captain Bellamy. His brother, Samuel, had also been a mariner, had captained his own ship, the Edinburgh Trader; she had gone down not long after pulling into the infamous pirate port Tortuga, sinking with no survivors. Captain Bellamy was a very different man from his brother. He did not take risks, and certainly didn't deal with pirates.

He strode down the pier towards his ship, the _Lusitania_. She was a handsome vessel, very sea worthy, very safe. He had commanded her for three years now, making regular trading runs to the west, pulling into Kingston, Port au Prince, Guantanamo, and numerous small island ports besides before heading through the Bahamas and returning to her starting point. It was a prosperous run, turning over a tidy profit each year, earning Bellamy a handsome commission. It was a reasonably uneventful run, too. Safe. At least it had been these last three years.

"Take care, Bellamy," a fellow captain and acquaintance called out to him as he passed him along the docks. "Watch where you sail when you head into the Bahamas. Lots of pirate attacks out there; they're calling it the Bermuda Triangle, a high-risk area. It's one raid after another, a right pirate's nest."

"Don't worry, Dewhurst, my trade route takes me round the west side of Cuba, far from pirate waters. I'm not going to get caught in this triangular pirate breeding ground."

"Pirate attacks can happen anywhere, mark my words. Take care of yourself, matey."

Bellamy shook his head to himself as the other man continued on. He was the least likely man to be attacked by pirates. If his brother's untimely death had taught him anything, it was never to have anything to do with pirates.

Speaking of which, two suspicious-looking lads were loitering around his gang plank. They carried a beat-up sea chest between them, and were looking towards his ship with interest. Bellamy's suspicions were aroused. He considered ignoring them, but he had to pass them to get onto his own ship.

"You there, lads," he called out somewhat haltingly. "You there, away from the gang plank! You are not authorized to board!" They ignored him completely. "You there!" He caught the taller one on the shoulder and pulled him around, face reddening in anger at the impudence of the pair. What was an angry flush turned to a blush in an instant; he removed the hand quickly.

"Captain Bellamy?" said a smooth, amused-sounding voice. "You remember me from last night, don't you? Missus Elizabeth Turner, and this is my son, William. You're taking us to an island during your trade run."

"Of course," Bellamy managed to splutter, his face still red and clearing his throat in an embarrassed manner. "W-welcome aboard. Glad to have you, Missus Turner, most glad to have you. A most respectable addition to our ship, I'm sure."

She had certainly seemed respectable when she had visited him at a late hour the previous night, as he had been pouring over charts for the day ahead. A well-turned out, respectably dressed woman with a high-class manner. Now in her long coat and breeches, a tri-corner hat on her head which hid her hair and stout boots upon her feet, he had mistaken her for some commonplace scallywag. But she seemed respectable enough, and her son looked a strong, amicable lad. Bellamy would not allow anyone the least bit unsavoury upon his ship, and he thought himself a relatively good judge of character. In any case, Mrs Turner was hardly a pirate.

"Thank you," she said now, with a dazzling smile that made the usually self-assured captain feel rather a fool.

"Ca-can I get someone to take your belongings aboard?" he managed to say.

"No thank you; we'll manage. I've seen the way the ruffians round here throw things on board; I'd hate for the negligee to become creased from some lad carelessly handling my chest."

With this parting shot, Elizabeth advanced up the gangplank, a smirking Will following behind her with his end of the sea chest. His mother could best any mariner, drunk or otherwise, who should unknowingly staggered across her path in a battle of wits.

At the word 'negligee' Bellamy had gone a brighter shade of puce. By the time he had managed to formulate a stuttered assurance that he employed only good lads who would treat her luggage respectfully, both mother and son were safely on board the Lusitania and were waiting to be shown their cabin.

* * *

On another part of the ocean, many nautical miles off the coast of Haiti, the _Black Dog_ closed in on her prey. She was a pirate vessel, and a particularly prolific one at that. She had just discovered an unsuspecting trade vessel bobbing along quiet-as-you-please, her deck seemingly unmanned. They had used the fading shadows before dawn to sneak up upon her, and as the morning sun burst into life upon the horizon, similarly did torches burst into flame beside the waiting canons, a touch-to-the-fuse away from wreaking devastation upon the innocent clipper. The boarding party was ready, a savage horde armed to the teeth. They were within ten yards of their quarry; the captain was about to give them the order to board-

There was a bright flash, and a pillar of water rose between the two ships. The brigands froze, confused; had she seen them and fired a defensive shot? Had that flash been a flare of gunpowder, that splash a ball falling short of its mark? But the flash had been too bright, the splash too loud; looking closer, they realized that the pillar of water was growing instead of dissipating, and something was coming up in her centre; the masthead of a ship, rising vertically from the turbulent water with a dull roar.

There was a frantic call to stations; the helmsman swung the _Black Dog_ around in a desperate attempt to get clear. There was just enough space for the newcomer, wherever she was coming from, to pass between the two ships. As the dumbstruck crew watched, the elegant vessel rose from the depths with all the ferocity of some ocean predator lunging upon its prey. She drew fearlessly between the two ships with feet to spare. No man on the _Black Dog_ failed to see her name painted on her side and feel his heart sink in dread down to his boots – the _Flying Dutchman_.

Having risen violently from the deep, she drifted languidly between the former predator and her prey. The _Black Dog_ and her crew found themselves unexpectedly knocked a few links down the food chain.

Each man fearfully scanned the _Dutchman_'s deck, knowing full-well what to expect to see. But there was no hulking figure of a captain, no monstrous crew, in fact no crew at all; she seemed as quiet as the ship they had been about to raid. One or two men began to feel more brazen. Perhaps it was a joke, an ordinary vessel with the near-mythical name painted upon her. One or two eyed her admiringly, enviously; the Blackie was becoming rather decrepit, and perhaps a bit too crowded for some of the lowlier crew members who had captaining aspirations.

A heavy footfall quelled this natural greed; once again apprehensive, the pirates looked for its source, and soon found it. A man, dressed in black; a man with a black bird, like some macabre twist on the pirate's usual pet parrot, perched upon his shoulder. This man surveyed them calmly, casually, as though they bore no significance or threat to him. It ruffled the composure of many a superstitious man. And pirates were a very superstitious lot.

There were, of course, a few exceptions. There were always men, brutishly pig-headed and self-centred men, who did not believe in old sea tales, but believed in only two things: what a man could do and what a man couldn't do. One such man was a particularly nasty specimen with a pistol in each hand and a sinister-looking knife between his teeth. This man had been ready for a morning of utmost enjoyment, killing innocent merchant sailors and looting their ship, and he wasn't about to let one man stand in the way of his professional pride.

Before any of the other men could stop him, he cocked a pistol and fired it straight into the mysterious man's chest. The man's body jerked at the impact, but returned to its original posture, as though the shot hadn't even touched him. For a moment the old scar on his chest was split by the bullet wound, the ball having entered right over his heart; a few moments later, the wound disappeared, though the old scar remained, whole once again.

The knife dropped from the ruffian's gaping mouth, the still-smoking pistol now trembling in his hand. His beliefs had been shot down; this was a man who could survive a mortal wound, a man who could not die.

The entire crew stood for a moment in shock. Then, without waiting for the stunned captain's orders, they moved as one, united by their frantic race to flee for their lives. The _Black Dog_ pulled away as fast as the winds could carry her, an entire ship full of bloodthirsty brigands defeated by a single man.

Captain Turner watched the _Black Dog_ disappear into the distance, a rueful smile on his lips. For what seemed the hundredth time during the last ten years, he was mildly amazed and repulsed by what he had become. He was hardly the monster his predecessor had been, it was true. But though he was by now quite nonchalant about his abilities, or lack of the dying kind thereof, it still disturbed him to take these violent onslaughts without retaining any lasting damage. As much as he could, he avoided taking wounds in the first place, a natural instinct perhaps. Seeing as he spent most of his time in the Locker anyhow, he wasn't often mortally wounded.

"No matter how many times I see that, it still gives me the shivers," Bootstrap declared, emerging from below deck. He had too often seen the monstrous Davy Jones take swords through the heart and that was one thing, but to see his own son…

Will turned to face him. "Me too, to be honest."

He crossed the deck and stood looking over the port side of the ship, at the silent trader. Throughout the altercation – what brief but tumultuous altercation there had been – she had stayed silent. Will's senses twitched. He held a hand out over the water between himself and the strangely still vessel. He bowed his head, his eyes closed in concentration.

"The _Temeraire_," he said after a moment. "Trade vessel from French Polynesia. The _Black Dog_ wasn't the first ship to get to her. Another was here recently. I sense dead souls on there; lots of them, could easily be the whole crew. A mutiny. Or a full-scale pillaging." Something about this rankled in Will's mind. Two full-scale raids in as many days…

They could be unrelated; pirates weren't exactly an amicable brotherhood. But so many within the space of two days…it seemed unlikely, yet what if they were by the same pirates…the same men who had attacked the _Demeter_, and given its captain-

Will lowered his hand, considering possibilities. Possibilities which would not resolve themselves into a single reality if he did not investigate.

"You'll be right to hold the fort?" he asked his father, grabbing hold of a hanging rope and putting one foot up on the ship's rail.

The first mate nodded. "Be careful over there." It seemed an unnecessary thing to say, but Bootstrap said it nevertheless.

Will gave him a grateful nod – it made him feel more human, to hear such things said – and swung himself easily across the gap between the two ships, Swoop imitating his action with a few flaps of his great wings.

Will landed lightly on the _Temeraire_'s deck. The quiet tap of his boot soles on the boards sounded like the desecration of a tomb, so silent was the vessel. Even the ocean's constant murmur seemed muffled by the eerie quietude beneath her ragged sails. There was not a single soul in sight. Swoop fluttered down upon one of the mizzen mast's cross-trees and squawked forlornly, as though he mourned the absence of the crew. The sound was disconcerting in the intense stillness.

Will was puzzled. Ships' crews didn't just disappear. Not in the middle of the ocean. He saw a few signs which could easily tell of either a struggle or simply disrepair. A shattered lantern there; a dusty handrail here; a partially obliterated footprint over there. The helm swung slightly, the ship's steering commanded only by the ocean's currents. The threadbare sails were lank with moisture, left unfurled beneath the elements. Something was clearly amiss here. A ship's crew didn't abuse their means of catching the winds, and therefore their only way of getting home, like that. At least, a crew with hopes of returning home didn't. Either this ship had been abandoned, or her crew had met with dire circumstances. In either case, ill fortune undoubtedly lay thick upon her boards as Will wandered them, searching for clues.

Seeing that the upper levels of the ship were deserted, Will headed for the interior of the vessel. He descended below deck, finding living quarters empty, hammocks for the crew members with their bedding left in dishevelled mounds, seemingly hastily left…

Will stopped short, looking sadly at the sight before him. He had reached the ship's brig, her prison cell for captured ruffians and mutinous crew hands. The brig was filled with an unlikely number of men, even for a particularly troublesome crew. And all were dead. Some lay in great heaps upon each other; some knelt or lay in prone positions; others stretched skeletal arms in pathetic gestures through the bars, having died where they stood. Will shivered; upon closer inspection, one man had bite marks taken out of his arm.

The entire crew had been locked in the brig of their own ship to slowly starve to death.

One man alone was free of the brig's bars, but he was lashed to a vertical support. The handsome hat upon his head and braid-adorned collar identified him as the _Temeraire_'s captain. He was firmly bound to the post, his decaying head lolling on his chest. One hand protruded from the ropes…something appeared to be clutched in it…could it be…?

As Will stooped forward to investigate, he heard a stealthy footstep sound upon the floorboards behind him.

* * *

The _Luitania_ glided across the waves, her prow dipping and plunging gently as she rode the tide out of the harbour. They passed the headland and entered the wide ocean; Will could see nothing but blue waves extending to the left and right beyond the coast. He suddenly felt very small and apprehensive. But excited as well.

He turned back once and looked back at the town of Port Royal, at her bustling docks, swarming with sea hands; the drowsy dwellings up in the hills, their windowpanes catching the first morning light; the familiar parapet high above near the town square, and took it all in, trying to fix in his mind the limits of his childhood, the previous boundaries of his familiar world. Then he turned to face the _Lusitania_'s course, tasting the salt tang in the air, feeling the spray and sunshine on his face.

_Bring me that horizon_, he thought to himself. _I'm ready for it._

He watched the crew's activities from the quarter deck next to his mother, fascinated by the flurry of activity involved in tending a ship. Voices sang out all over the deck. Their enthusiasm was infectious; they obviously enjoyed their work.

"Tack that line down!"

"Raise the top sail!"

"Secure the jib!"

"Lay aloft! Unfurl that bunt!"

"Avast, me hearties!"

All the men within earshot of this last comment chuckled good-naturedly. Will blushed and shrank back behind the rail, feeling foolish. He may be the son of the ultimate pirate, but he still knew nothing about sailing.

Elizabeth grinned sympathetically. Young Will was starting out much like his father, though at least he was starting earlier.

"Eh, lad!" a weathered voice called from below. "If yeh want t' learn 'bout sailin', why not come 'ere 'n help the cabin boy? If 'at's alright with yer mam, o' course."

Will looked at Elizabeth pleadingly. She nodded her encouragement. With an eager spring in his step, Will bounded down the stairs to the main deck to be assigned a task.

Elizabeth watched him as he held brief conversation with the sailor who had summoned him, then was directed to a stocky boy who seemed slightly older than himself. The boy was tugging on the line which raised the innermost jib; Will took up the rope behind him and helped him haul it up. All was going well until the boy turned to look at him out of curiosity; his attention lapsed, and the rope suddenly slid through his fingers. Will, also taken by surprise, managed to stop the sail's descent after it had fallen only a few feet; what had been a hard task for the older boy was a tougher one for him, the pulleys being stiff with salt and rust. Nevertheless, he put his back into it and finished the job single-handedly. Nearby sailors looked on in approval as he securely tacked the line down. Elizabeth smiled. Some of Jameson the tutor's lessons had been more practical than others. He was a retired naval officer, and had taught Will numerous handy knots. The lessons looked to have been a worthwhile investment.

The cabin boy, his face reddening at the sailor's open approval of the newcomer, approached Will with a sullen demeanour. Will barely had time to complete the knot before a heavy fist caught him on the shoulder. The older boy glared down at him.

"I didn't need your help!" he growled menacingly. "You came and made me mess up my job! Keep to yourself, damn land-lubber! You're too weak, you should go stand with your mother! Cross-eyed runt!"

Will paled visibly at the insult, but seemed quite calm. The men watched attentively without appearing to do so, waiting to see if the smaller boy would reply. Elizabeth held her breath, making herself stay on the quarter deck.

Will suddenly stepped closer to the boy and kicked out at his shins; his pudgey legs went out from under him and he fell forward with a surprised yelp – right across Will's shoulders.

"Two things control a ship," Will grunted beneath the weight of the kicking, squealing boy who was now hoisted across his back. "Men's actions and the ocean. You can blame the sea for your own mistake if you want, but if you're going to blame me for them, go and tell it to the sea itself."

Though his knees quivered beneath the massive boy's weight, he managed to hold him aloft and stagger towards the ship's side. The frightened boy whimpered as he saw the ocean rising up towards him beyond the approaching rail.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he well-nigh sobbed in terror. "It was my fault, blame me – just don't throw me overboard! Put me down, please!"

The watching sailors guffawed at the older boy's plight, their humours tickled by the Turner lad's pluck. Will took two more steps whilst the older boy whined and pleaded; then he stopped and dropped him suddenly, unceremoniously onto the deck. The boy landed on his backside with a thud, getting shakily to his feet. He looked down at Will in shock; he was at least a head taller than him. Will looked back up at him with a steely expression which said he would take no further insults. The surrounding sailors leaned in eagerly to see what would happen next.

"You're just a little kid! How did you lift me?"

"I'm stronger than I look. I practice with a sword for at least three hours every day. I use a heavy sword, so my arms are strong." His voice was quiet, matter-of-fact; he was making a statement, not showing off.

The boy looked at Will with new-found respect.

"You have your own sword?" he asked, staring in awe at the gleaming weapon at Will's hip.

"Yes; my father made it," was the prideful answer.

"Did he teach you to fight?"

"No, I don't really know my father. He spends all his time at sea. But my mother taught me. She's a tough fighter, she's beaten pirates twice her size in a sword fight, and the pirates didn't always fight fair." It was quite true; he had seen Elizabeth break up more than one barroom brawl before Buck had had a chance to intervene himself.

"Wow! Could she teach me?"

"I don't know. You're a bit old to start learning."

"Have you been to sea before?"

"No."

"I have a couple of times, twice on this ship. Come on, I'll show you the galley."

The two boys disappeared below deck, almost as though there had never been any animosity between them.

"That's quite a fine son you have there," Captain Bellamy said, coming to stand on the upper deck beside Elizabeth, hoping to make up for previous blunders with his compliments.

Elizabeth smiled proudly, happy tears hastily blinked from her eyes.

"He has my temper, I'm afraid. But his resolve, his bravery, his determination; he's his father's son through and through."

Elizabeth leaned on the rail, watching the waves slide by and listening to the breeze flutter the sails. The captain, realizing she no longer paid him any heed and seeking to avoid any further indiscretion, sidled off, leaving her alone with her memories.

The last time she had been on a ship…she stared into the middle distance, the hubbub of the sailors working below her unheard as she cast her mind back to that trip…_it was over nine years ago now..._


	8. Chapter 7: The Last Time

**Chapter 7 – The Last Time**

_Nine years and three months earlier…_

Elizabeth felt a terrible pain ripple through her abdomen and clutched at her side with a gasp. The pirate standing over her brandished his sword menacingly and laughed at her discomfort. There was an old sabre cut across his left cheek, the skin pale against his swarthy complexion and pulling tight as he grinned lewdly down at her.

Elizabeth scolded herself for her weakness and pulled a knife from beneath the pillow at her elbow, holding it defensively before her with a frightfully savage look upon her face. The pirate stiffened for a moment, cautioned off; then another contraction torn through her and she clutched her swollen belly with her other hand. She gritted her teeth against the low moan that escaped her despite herself; it was all she could do not to drop the knife in despair and scream. The pirate knew she was helpless and laughed again, the horrid sound grating on her. Her eyes travelled from the maid sprawled senseless on the floor to the partially open cabin door, through which she could hear a fierce battle taking place out on the deck. A cutlass' blade suddenly intersected her vision, drawing her attention back to her antagonist.

"No one left to help ye now, poppet," he drawled coarsely, his words conjuring up in her horrible feelings of terror and helplessness from past experiences. "Ye certainly can't help yerself in yer condition. A pirate raid sure ain't the time to be havin' a babe."

Elizabeth cursed and cursed herself again for not leaving for the home of her father's cousin earlier. She had been suppose to go and stay with family in Bristol months ago, well before the impending birth of her child, but she had put off leaving Port Royal as long as possible. Why, she wasn't sure herself…perhaps because she had been living in his house there, and she had wanted to remain connected to him for as long as possible…even though she knew he could not return there to be with her for the birth of their child…

And now the baby was coming early. Elizabeth was more terrified than she had ever been in her entire life, more than she had thought she could ever be. She had flattered herself that she could handle almost anything, more than most women could; but she had been caught in the worst situation possible, utterly unprepared and unable to do the simplest thing to defend herself. Her contractions had started just before their ship had been attacked by a pirate vessel. This ruffian had entered her cabin, knocking the terrified maid to the floor where she remained, unconscious, as Elizabeth lay prone on the bed.

Another pain shot through her; Elizabeth whimpered, her eyes streaming tears and curling up in a quivering ball, the knife falling, useless, beside her on the mattress. The pirate lowered his blade with a sneer, knowing full-well that he need do nothing to keep her unarmed.

"Lie there quietly while I have a look at that sea chest of yours," he muttered. Elizabeth's breath seemed to stop and her heart pounded fit to breaking in her chest as he turned and looked with a malicious grin at the chest on the floor beside the bed. Her nerves similarly shook as he seized its lid and jostled it roughly. It was securely locked.

She felt his frustration as he eyed her. Though she was terrified and pitifully inept, she resolved to stab him if he tried to search her for the key, hand poised on the bed beside her and ready to dive for the nearby knife. He took a step towards her and her blood hummed in her veins, prepared for the confrontation; then her blood froze as he stopped, his hand going to the hilt of his sword as he turned back towards the chest again. Over her own palpitating heart she heard him growl:

"I'll have my fun with you after I've made short work of this."

Everything, even the pain in her belly, disappeared as his cutlass slid from its sheath with an ugly sound; her eyes followed it desperately as it was raised over the ruffian's head, the sea chest clearly in its downward path. Time slowed itself and it seemed to remain in the air for an eternity; yet that time ended all too quickly as the blade began to arc downwards at the chest's unprotected lid. She knew perfectly well what would happen it that sword hacked through the wood and damaged what was _inside_…

"_No_-!" she cried out, groping madly towards the chest, willing herself to spring up and shield it with her own body but pain racking her anew as she tried to rise, causing her legs to buckle beneath her…as the sword descended she thought she saw a shadow flutter beyond it, outside the cabin's window…

Moments before the sword could splinter through the chest, the window behind it exploded inwards in a maelstrom of broken glass, through which Elizabeth's disbelieving eyes could see _someone_…

The newly arriving assailant swung into the room on a rope, both of his heavy black boots catching the pirate in the chest. The wind knocked out of him, he fell back, letting go of the cutlass; its blade was still embedded in the chest's lid, the merest nick taken out of the wood. The newcomer stood firmly between the pirate and the chest, his eyes flashing with dark rage as the ruffian, thoroughly winded, crumpled against the opposite wall. He deftly kicked the fallen cutlass from where it was wedged in the weathered and blade-nicked wood; it slid across the room and into a corner, well beyond the dangerous hands of its owner. A dark bird fluttered to the man's shoulder. It looked at Elizabeth with intelligent eyes which registered recognition; it squawked a greeting.

"Will!" she cried out, almost fainting in awestruck disbelief, half wondering if it were some incredible waking dream to see him standing there. He turned and saw her.

His eyes took in her, lying on the dishevelled sheets, her hand still clutching her swollen belly protectively; he stared, seeming to falter for a moment-

During which the brigand recovered himself enough to draw a knife and lunge at him. The knife plunged deeply into his chest.

"_Will!_" Elizabeth screamed shrilly, almost in one long sob. Her heart hurt as her mind hurtled back to that horrible moment when she had seen Davy Jones' sword pierce his chest; she was watching him die a second time…

Will seemed slightly stunned; then as the pirate stepped back after his mad lunge, Will's right fist flew up and connected with his jaw with a sickening crunch. With a sharp yank, Will pulled the knife from where it was buried in his chest, its blade intersecting the old scar there, as though it worried him no more than a bur stuck in his clothing. The thin trickle of blood flowed back upwards into the wound and disappeared. Elizabeth's eyes widened in amazement, feeling relief and wonderment coursing through her. She remembered the former Davy Jones' powers…to think that the man she loved now possessed them…

The pirate reeled from the hit, blood dripping from his broken jaw. Will took a menacing step towards him, then stopped dead in his tracks as the pirate drew a pistol from his coat and, before he could act, pointed the barrel at Elizabeth.

"Stay, or I kill 'er!" His words were slurred slightly by the mangled jaw that hung slackly, at an odd angle, from his face. He cocked the pistol, watching Will with wild eyes. Will's gaze flitted back to Elizabeth; she looked back at him helplessly. Seeing his attention shift, the brigand suddenly turned the barrel on the sea chest at Will's feet and pulled the trigger.

Will saw Elizabeth's gaze shift back to the pirate just in time. He blindly threw himself at him, knocking him over before he even registered that the man had fired. The pirate's arm was jostled by the impact; the pistol's barrel careened around as the ball left the chamber, shattering the jug that stood on Elizabeth's nightstand.

Will swung the knife in his hand downwards into the pirate's chest; he gave a great, shuddering gasp which swiftly became a hoarse death-rattle. The pistol dropped from his stiffened hand. Will advanced with him to the shattered window and threw him out into the ocean. Beyond the broken window frame Elizabeth could just see a set of dark sails in the distance - the _Dutchman_. She had brought her captain back to Elizabeth just in time.

She said his name now, her voice tender, a weary, near-delirious smile upon her tear-streaked face. All through her pregnancy, since the moment he had left her, she had longed for him; now at the time of the birth, he was actually here. She was still only half-believing, still thought it might be some vision, her own sense of longing made material; it was too good, too miraculous to be true.

"Elizabeth."

His voice saying her name reassured her of his presence. She could hear all the love in his voice, the same emotion he had spoken it with during their engagement. She could also hear the surprise, the uncertainty in it as he stared at her, at her obviously pregnant form…she hadn't been able to tell him, to write down such a momentous thing on a mundane piece of paper…this was the first he'd learnt of it…he was right to be shocked…

The door to the cabin flew off its hinges, making Elizabeth flinch. A brigand stood in the doorway, obviously drawn by curiosity for his comrade's long absence. In an instant, his eyes flitted from Elizabeth to Will to the sea chest standing before the broken window.

He took one step into the room, his hand going for his sabre. Before he could draw it, Will was upon him, running him through. He fell in a heap in the now-open doorway. They could hear several sets of running footsteps approaching beyond it.

Will strode purposefully towards the door, reaching down and taking the fallen pirate's sword from his belt as he did so, drawing his own with his other hand. It emitted a clear metallic ring as it flew smoothly from its sheath.

"Will," she called out to him again as he left the cabin, a bare blade in each hand. Desperation and longing were written on her face. He stood for a moment in the door, looking back at her. The look was one of utmost seriousness; one she had seldom seen on his face, one that wrung her heart with guilt. It was a mournful look, a look of askance, of disappointment. Did he suspect another man…?

Footsteps rapidly approached him from either side of the upper deck. He didn't break his gaze away from her, but pointed either blade to his left or right. With simultaneous vertical thrusts in opposite directions, he pinioned each of the two men who rushed him upon the glittering blades. With a jerk, he pulled them free of the bodies; the two men dropped dead at his feet.

He looked at Elizabeth for a moment longer – it was a look that spoke of love despite his disappointment, that promised that he would protect her and the child she was carrying at any cost. Then he turned and leapt over the railing and into the melee on the deck below.

Elizabeth fell back upon the bed as he disappeared, half-swooning. Too many emotions had gone through her in a small space of time. One hand was still extended after him; she murmured his name weakly. She needed him to come back, needed to explain to him that it was his child…

The outstretched hand faltered as a contraction gripped her again; she panted for breath, gasping at the sensation coursing through her belly. A second wave passed over her soon after…they were becoming more frequent…

A hand gripped hers. She opened the eyes she had closed against the pain and peered blearily at the person beside her. Estrella, her faithful maid, was there looking concernedly down at her. She was ignoring the blood trickling from the wound on her forehead where she the pirate had struck her, and instead stroked Elizabeth's own clammy brow.

"Easy now, Miss," she said soothingly. "Take it easy now; I'm here to help you. Just calm down, breathe deeply for a moment. Then we'll start trying to push."

* * *

Will tore across the ship's deck like a whirlwind of blades, cutting a swathe through the chaos. The crew of the respectable merchant vessel were putting up a feeble fight; half the crew had already fallen. Will began to slice through the brigands relentlessly. They turned, surprised by this battle-adept newcomer. A group of them rushed him. He cut two down with one stroke of their mate's cutlass, stabbed another with his own sword, kicked another who hesitated squarely in the chest. 

He felt a knife sink into his back and sighed. Ignoring the wound he knew was there, the knife remaining embedded in his flesh, he continued to fight off the ones in front of him. Some of them had seen the knife go in and saw it as their chance to finish this upstart off; yet pirate after pirate only succeeded in throwing himself forward onto Will's waiting swords, whilst he himself did not weaken, not even falter, in the slightest.

He only turned when he heard a pistol being cocked behind him. As soon as he whirled around, a ball caught him fair in the chest. It knocked him back a step; then he recovered. He continued to bear down upon the now-trembling man.

The pirate fired shot after shot into him in desperation. His hand was so tremulous, he could no longer aim. Some bullets just barely clipped Will's coat sleeve, another went through his shoulder; one even went straight through his forehead, knocking his bandanna askew. He whipped it off, his hand momentarily obscuring his forehead; by the time it was removed, the wound was gone.

The man was a gibbering heap by now. He had seen his dagger slide into Will's back with no effect, and he had run out of bullets. He fell to his knees, the pistol dropping from his hands, which were raised in supplication. His voice failed him; he managed only an urgent rasp.

Will relentlessly cut the pleading man down. He wasn't in a merciful mood.

The whole time he fought, his mind was centred on the cabin in the upper berth. A child…she was having a _child_…why hadn't he known? Whose was it? Why had she deceived him? She had written to him a dozen times already, but not a single mention…why the concealment? Was the babe another's…?

His mind tried to calculate as he distractedly swung his blade at the charging pirates, oblivious to the various wounds they were dealing him before he slew them. The birth…so it would have to have been nine months previous…not while he had still been alive, surely, unless the birth was late? But after he had left…would he have been gone for sufficient time? It seemed like years since he had last seen her…but actually it had been…only…it must be less than a year? Nine, ten months?

_Nine months_ _ago_…they had…that last time…

He stopped dead. The thought stunned him, stopped him like no violent attacks from pirates could. He ignored the knives which took advantage of his inaction, plunging into his back whilst his own blade remained unresponsive. His mind worked numbly, frenzily, around this new idea…

Was it _possible_…?

With a yell, a whole horde of pirates ran at him like madmen, bellowing like wounded bulls and with either glinting cutlasses or smoking pistols held high. Before they could fall upon him, another lithe figure darted before them from the port side of the ship, slicing through three men in a single powerful stroke. Galvanized by this unexpected action, Will finished the rest of the horde off, examining his mysterious helper.

That sword – broad like a cutlass, but of a completely different design, the blacksmith's mind ran. He had seen blades like that before, not so long ago…memories of being pursued by similarly-armed guards through a Buddhist temple came back to him…

Behind the newcomer Will could see a trail of pirate corpses, leading clearly towards the stern, where the upper berths were situated… Dark, narrow eyes regarded him quietly; the man gave him a curt nod of respect and recognition.

_An Oriental?_ Will recognized the man…he had been The Empress' first mate, Sao Feng's first mate…but Feng was dead, and the current Pirate Lord of the South China Seas was-

Understanding dawned in Will's eyes; the other saw it. An unspoken alliance was formed between the two's solemn glances. They began to fight side by side, encircled by bloodthirsty pirates. Both were fighting to protect the same woman, who held a different significance for each of them.

The pirates' numbers were dwindling. During a lapse in the fighting, Will turned his back to the other man and asked "Would you mind?"

The man grimaced as he saw that the back of Will's coat was studded with at least half a dozen knives. He dutifully removed them, scowling and muttering to himself in amazement as he drew each one out. He stood now with two hands full of knives, wondering what to do with them.

His dilemma was solved by two pirates who rushed at him, swords drawn. Still more than ten paces from him, they each received a fistful of thrown daggers and toppled over backwards, dead.

Will had turned to watch. "Not bad," he said with a grin. As he was thus distracted, a pirate lunged upon him. Both Will and his attacker stabbed each other simultaneously; the pirate fell, and Will, without having even looked at him once, calmly pulled his opponent's sword from his abdomen.

His fighting partner winced. "Not bad at all," he declared in slightly stumbling English.

The pirates were well and truly defeated by the two men. The last surviving stragglers were retreating, leaping onto their own ship, which was drawn up beside the trader. As she dropped the lines that moored her to her prey and began to withdraw, Will sprinted across the deck and was about to jump the rail, pursuing the fleeing brigands, when a sound arrested him. With one foot upon the rail, his eyes still following the ship's retreat, the wail of a newborn babe reached his ears.

Will stopped, turning slowly to face the upper deck. Leaving the Oriental sailor, throwing down his swords and stepping obliviously over the bodies littering the deck, he raced up the stairs to the upper berth and stopped in the cabin doorway.

* * *

Estrella turned, startled, as a dark silhouette appeared in the cabin door, then relaxed as she recognized Will Turner. 

"A boy," she informed him. "A healthy baby boy." She withdrew a bit to the other side of the cabin, leaving the family some privacy.

Elizabeth was reclining on the bed, her eyes half-closed. Her whole body was limp with exhaustion, her hair matted with sweat, still breathing somewhat more heavily from the exertion. In her arms was nestled a tiny pink-faced babe wrapped in a sheet, his lusty cries shrill in the cabin's confines. As Will watched, awe plainly written upon his face and his tentative attitude a distinct contrast to his previously battle-zealous manner, she gently nuzzled the infant's downy head, holding him close to her breast. Comforted instinctively by her presence, the child quietened. Amongst all the strange things Will had seen during the last few years, this was surely the most remarkable occurrence he had ever witnessed.

"Will," she whispered; thinking she summoned him, he took a step towards the bed, then stopped as she began to speak again. "William Turner. Named after his father."

Will thought he was going to swoon; such an elation and giddy happiness filled him he thought he might burst with it. In one quick movement he crossed the distance from the door to the bed and dropped heavily to his knees beside her. She opened her eyes, saw him, and smiled such a smile as made him feel weak.

"Elizabeth," he murmured, his voice as faint as he felt, not knowing what else to say.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I wanted to tell you, to write it to you, but how could I write of such a thing with you away, unable to see him? How could I do that to you? I thought, if you didn't know he was waiting, the ten years might be easier…I'm sorry, it must have been a shock, you must have suspected when I didn't tell you…but how could I tell you such a thing in a letter? How could I share him with you, you being so far away? You came back just when I needed you. I can tell you right now to your face, William Turner, and I tell you absolutely true. He's yours, Will; he's your son."

"My son," Will fairly breathed the words, trying to get used to the sound of the words. _His son_. Elizabeth's son…and _his_ son…

Slowly, shakily, he extended a hand, masterful moments ago, now seemingly afflicted with a nervous palsy, towards the drowsing babe. Tenderly, with the gentlest of touches, he caressed the infant's head. Young Will murmured in his sleep, shifting slightly beneath his touch. Will gasped in delighted amazement, a giddy laugh escaping his lips. It did them both wonders, to hear his laughter ringing unrestrained in that small cabin. Neither could remember the last time they had laughed, the last time they had felt such wild join within their breasts…perhaps during their engagement, when they had been young, reckless and carefree…for even their last meeting, when they had owned the other as husband and wife, and held the other tenderly in their arms, their union had been saddened by their impending separation…

It was quite a sight to see the dark, brooding man, in a pirate's rough garb, kneeling beside his love's bed, their son there in their arms. Both Will's and Elizabeth's hands supported him and he slept in their grasp. Will locked eyes with her; leaning in carefully over the sleeping child so that she needn't rise and disturb it, he brought his lips to hers.

Their kiss was soft, yet fiercely passionate; she opened her mouth, wanting to savour having him so close to her after all this time, these fearful months without him. He acquiesced for a minute or two, his other hand clasping her shoulder so that he cradled both mother and son in his arms. Then he broke the contact between them, looking deeply, sadly into her eyes. The exuberant new father was gone; sadness haunted his gaze.

"The sun sets," he said, his tone dejected. "I need to go."

He disengaged them from his arms and made to rise; she clutched at his sleeve with her last reserves of energy.

"Stay," she pleaded, a teary note in her voice. "Stay with me, and him. We'll find a ship all our own; you need never set foot on land. Defy the Locker. We could be a family that way, on the ocean. I _need_ you; he needs you."

He exhaled sharply, the words on his tongue nearly tearing his resolve to pieces as he looked at the two beautiful faces before him.

"I can't. If I deny the curse, I won't be fit to be your husband; your son will have a monster for a father, as bad, if not worse, than the previous captain of the _Dutchman_. I can't turn my back on my duty, as much as it pains me to feel I'm turning my back on you, on him. I have to repay the sacrifice I made to have that one day, to remain alive in this world; to repay the undoing of my death. This way I can return to you, if only for a day, rather than being dead to you for an eternity, or else turned into a form not fit for you to see." He stroked her hair affectionately, almost fretfully. "How I regret the day I ever crossed lives with you, Elizabeth, that I ever made my love known to you. I could have saved you the suffering."

She rose determinedly from the pillow at that, catching his hand in hers before he could pull away and bringing it to her cheek. He felt the tears welling there beneath his fingers.

"Then I would never have had you, or had our child," she whispered, staring into his face as though she were trying to memorise every feature, every line she saw there. "I feel blessed for every moment I have known with you, Will Turner; every joyful moment we shared has been the greatest joy of my life. I will endure anything for those brief moments; I'll wait however long I have to wait, so long as you come back to me."

"I'll come back," he replied, drawing so close she could feel his breath on her cheek. "Even if I have to fight my way through hell to do it, I'll come back to you, on that day. I wouldn't dare miss it for anything."

He kissed her again, a slow, lingering kiss, as though they were making it last in order to provision themselves for the next nine years with that kiss alone. Then at last he broke away and strode out of the cabin.

He reclaimed his sword from where he had dropped it upon the deck. The ship's captain watched his actions fearfully, crossing himself in an intense fit of superstitious fear. Will turned to face him; he and the remaining crew members flinched, as though they expected him to savage them as he had their own attackers.

"The woman and her son," he said, his voice commanding; the men recoiled as though it lashed them. "Put them down safely in Bristol." Will did not want Elizabeth and the infant thrown overboard because of his actions; he knew the superstitious minds of sailors. His dark glare threatened worse than was done to the pirates upon these men if they should so much as get such thoughts in their heads.

"O-o-of c-c-c-course," the petrified captain managed to stutter, knock-kneed with terror, the other crew members cowering behind him.

Will turned to the Pirate Lord's mate. The man was sifting idly through the remains of the brigands, poking through their garments with his broadsword, looking for items of interest. He seemed slightly bored now that the fighting was over.

"Look after them for me."

Will felt horrible, asking another man to protect his family; as though he were failing them himself. The man merely nodded with the seriousness and reservedness he always exhibited.

"Of course. She is my captain and my king."

With a satisfied nod, leaving the ship's crew now in frightened awe of the enforcer of his wishes, Will returned to the cabin.

"I'll protect it better in future."

Will paused in the broken window, his former point of entry, as Elizabeth addressed him one last time. The sea chest was near him; it had been the source of the conflict, yet had been forgotten until now.

"I should have done better than that. Next time, I'll be ready. I'll never leave it, it will always be with me. I'll protect it with my life. You won't ever need to worry for it again."

"I never will for a second," he declared, his voice clearly in earnest. "I am sorry you must bear a part of me as your burden. You are my true heart; it is you I worry for, and him. Take care of yourself and him for me; I know you'll raise him to be as good and brave, as lovable and beautiful as you."

Her tears spilled their banks as he said these words to her. His eyes were also bedewed as he devoured her with his gaze, taking sustenance from her appearance now for the long years ahead.

"I love you."

"And I love you."

With one last wistful look, he stepped through the shattered window.

A moment later she could see the _Dutchman_ sailing away towards the horizon. She did not know how he had boarded her so swiftly, but she knew he was there, being taken away from her. The ship flew at an impossible speed towards the sunset, as though she were racing the sun, and winning. Then, as the sun eclipsed her upon the horizon, there was a great flash in the sky, staining the clouds an eerie colour; like a thunderclap it was gone, and gone with it was the ship, and her love upon it.

She lay there staring after it, feeling suddenly desolate, as though something had been stolen from her. She continued to stare out the window with a lost expression, until a subdued squawk made her turn.

The albatross. It was perched cautiously on the bed, just within arm's length of her, as though it didn't wish to disturb her and the sleeping son in her arms. In its mouth it held a scrap of dry paper. Swoop hadn't followed his master down.

Elizabeth took the paper. She instantly knew his handwriting.

_If ever you are in danger upon the ocean again, send word to me _

_ through Swoop, and I'll be there to protect you again. Take care, _

_ and love my son for me in my absence. My heart, my love, my _

_ thoughts of every waking moment, are with you always. You _

_ and he will make my curse easier to bear._

_ My love always,_

_ Will_

Elizabeth's vision of this message blurred behind her tears. She tried to restrain herself, but the silent sobs raked her fatigued body. As her breast quivered with her sobs, it roused the babe sleeping nestled against her chest, and he began to wail fretfully, as though in sympathy with her and in awareness of his own loss.


	9. Chapter 8: Mysterious Business

**Chapter 8 – Mysterious Business**

Will shuddered as a sharp spasm jolted his chest. He sighed. After ten years, he was starting to get sick of this occurring. Every blade to come within an arm's length of him seemed compelled to plunge into his chest, as though to remind him what was missing there. He turned slowly.

Seeing the glinting blade protruding from Will's torso, the man's jaw fell open so wide, it seemed almost to hit against his knocking knees. With a strangled squeal of abject terror, he turned and scrambled up onto the deck, tripping up the stairs in his haste. Will followed him at a more leisurely pace, not bothering to pull the sword from his back.

He emerged onto the deck just in time to see the man pause at the starboard rail. He saw Will approaching, looked apprehensively at the ocean at his back, then with one last fearful look at Will, deciding he'd rather face the deep than the undead man, he threw himself overboard.

Will heard the splash as he hit the water, starting to feel anxious. Rightly so, it seemed, as numerous more frenzied splashes followed immediately after. The man was too thin, almost wasted away; he was too exhausted from hunger to keep himself afloat for long.

Will strained, trying to reach the sword that cleanly skewered him, with no success. He couldn't reach it where it pinioned him right between the shoulder blades, and he'd do the man more harm than good if he dove after him with a razor-sharp sword sticking out of his chest. He looked around distractedly, looking for an idea…

The empty lantern bracket caught his eye.

After numerous tries, he managed to wedge the sword's hand guard between its steel support and the wall. Making sure it held firm, he took a deliberate step forward, straining all his weight against the blade running through him. Gradually it slid out, coming free from his flesh and falling from the bracket to the deck with a clatter.

Thus unburdened, Will lost no time in racing to the railing and diving headlong over it, where the sailor's desperate splashes were becoming feebler.

* * *

The cabin boy, whose name was Morgan, scrambled about the _Lusitania_'s underbelly on a sailor's seasoned sea legs. Will followed him more cautiously, trying to accustomise himself to the walls tilting around him, first towards port, then to starboard, as the ship yawed around her axis on the bounding waves.

In the galley they met the quartermaster, a cheery man working over a stew pot. Though he had to wedge himself into position before the similarly-swaying counter top with his crutch, having lost a leg nearly at the hip during naval service, he was in the best of spirits, chatting animatedly with the boys, bantering off witty jokes and forcing a juicy apple from his stores upon each of them in a rather paternal manner – "The sea air will put a good appetite in ye, lads," he declared.

After a good few minutes being charmed by the charismatic man's easy manner, Will noticed another presence in the galley. A shaggy head of dark hair was bent over a pile of potatoes, handling the peeling knife with alarming dexterity.

"That's Chen, my assistant," the quartermaster explained. "He's an eastern slaver who was hunkerin' for a job, so I took 'im on, seein' as I was new to this berth an' had no assistant o' me own. He's a quiet chap, not one for much o' a chin-wag-" Will rather felt that the talkative sailor could make up for the both of them "-but he's handy with a knife, and does his dooty without a word agin' it. Course, if he did, 'e knows he'd get a crutch in the ribs, eh mate?" He swung his crutch at the solemn man in jest; the kitchen hand merely regarded him with a patient stare, like an armed soldier watching a boy wave around a wooden sword.

Something about this man's sullen nature put Will ill at ease. He was reluctant to turn his back on him; he wasn't sure what he suspected in front of Morgan and the ship's cook, but there seemed to be some kind of sinister intent, some secretive manner about the man's behaviour, his obstinate silence almost a defiance of some kind. He knew the type; similar men had occasionally turned up at the tavern, and were best given their drinks hastily, then left well alone.

As they left the galley with the cook's hearty farewells, assuring them they could get a bite to eat whenever they liked, they passed the man near the door. For what was almost the first time during the afternoon, he raised his head from his task, inclined his head towards Will in a more fierce than friendly manner, then swiftly bent over his work again, as though he didn't want to meet Will's eyes. Will shivered inwardly. For the first time during his excitement to be at sea, he realized fully just how dangerous this voyage could be. He resolved to avoid the man where he could, and watch him warily whenever he was around. There were people, he knew, after him and his mother, and the sea chest they had in their possession. People of the very worst sort.

* * *

The man's name was Pierre. At least, that was the only name Will and Bootstrap were able to extract from him. The man acted as though they were attempting to persuade him to incriminate himself in a court of law. Or sell his soul to the devil. The devil of the sea, mayhap.

Finally Will gave up trying to find out anything from the terrorized man about his attackers and broke off the interrogation with a sigh of vexation.

"The mate will escort you down to the galley, where our boatswain, who acts as quartermaster when the need arises, will provide you with victuals. You'll probably need some blankets too, your clothes are wet and will start to chill soon. Rest and try to replenish yourself. You'll be under our protection until we can drop you in a safe port."

The man scurried off ahead of Bootstrap, seemingly afraid of his presence as well. Will could see him staring nervously at the walls as he went below deck, as though he expected the infamous _Dutchman_ at any moment to swallow him up.

_Not such an irrational fear under my predecessor's command_, Will reminded himself.

He thought he could guess how the man had managed to survive. He had noticed the indentations of a set of teeth on the man's forearm, and a thin bruise on his shoulder which seemed to correspond with a broken bar in the brig's grille work. It seemed this man had been attacked by two others – the corpses of whom he had found sprawled near the gap in the bars – and struck his back against the cage wall in the fight. He had then saved himself from being eaten by crawling through the resulting gap, which was too small for the other sailors to follow him through. The ship's stores seemed to have been raided by its attackers, as it had been completely bare when Will had explored it; the man must have found a few scraps left behind which he had nourished himself with up until Will had found him.

Though Will hazarded a guess that they had been locked in the brig for about five days, some of the men had only died within the last twenty-four hours – some Will recognized from having seen their souls in the Locker, others he had not yet encountered. The captain was among these last ones. His body, when Will had untied and examined it, appeared unmarked; he too, then, had been lashed to the post without food or water, a slow death enforced upon him, perhaps the slowest of all because he had been forced into inaction and didn't lose his strength as quickly as the others, who had fought and jostled for each other's flesh in the brig. Perhaps this had been deliberate – if he had died sooner, Will would've sooner received the object in his hand, bound to his fist with a knotted cord...

When Bootstrap returned from the galley, having left Pierre in the charge of the boatswain, he found the captain deep in thought, idly turning over a fragment of paper in his hands. The spindly writing on it read:

_Townsfolk on land be buried in churchyards_

_Sailors on ships be buried at sea_

_Nobles surrender to brigands and pirates_

_Monsters like you will surrender to me_

"These rhymes are getting worse," Will muttered without looking up. However his tone sounded less flippant, more strained than when the first black spot had been received. It wasn't just superstitious foolishness anymore; someone was deliberately targeting the captain of the _Dutchman_. And whoever the writer was, he was confident that he could take on Death himself.

"It's a mysterious business, this," Bootstrap growled. "Ne'er seen the like of it. Ne'er known one who'd dare."

"This one certainly does dare; what's more, he leaves whole ships of dead men as a trail for us. The _Temeraire_ was attacked about four days before the _Demeter_, yet if we'd stayed in the Locker, I would only have received this tonight. Someone deliberately tried to mislead me. Someone is trying to lead me in, threaten me. Who knows where they are now; they've had plenty of time to put some plan into action, or to kill others."

His tone as he said these last words was leaden; Bootstrap looked at him sharply.

"You don' s'ppose they know that Elizabeth has-"

"_I don't know_." His tone was something fearful; it made even his father's heart quiver to hear the barely-restrained ferocity in it. "But I need to warn her. I was meaning to write to them anyway – _both _of them." In an instant his voice had again undergone a change from hard as steel to soft as feather-down.

Will went to the window of the captain's quarters and whistled. He was answered with a less-melodious warble; Swoop appeared on the window ledge. Will tossed him a tiny fish from a bowl on the table, which he caught deftly in his beak. Thus the courier's deal was struck, his pay administered; he need now only wait for the letters to be written for him to deliver them.

Bootstrap smiled as he watched Will open a box of stationary that resided on an adjacent window sill. For the first time, Will would address his son directly in a letter. This black spot business couldn't have come at a worse time, little more than two weeks before _that day_…

Something glimmered near Will's hand. It wasn't the shine of a brass button; Bootstrap stared at it, trying to find its source.

"What's that?"

Will saw what he pointed at and peered closely, his brow furrowing. He could see here in the sunlight what he had missed in the Locker's gloom: something had been scratched into the middle of the black spot on the paper with a burnt charcoal stick, drawn in wispy silver lines which were only visible under strong light. Will produced the first spot he had received; it bore the same sign. They were two elaborately-curling letters, written in the same spindly handwriting:

_J.S._

There was silence for a moment during which both men considered this strange device; then Bootstrap said what was foremost on his mind:

"Not _Jack Sparrow_, surely?"

Will shook his head with a smug grin that obviously showed what he thought of Jack Sparrow. "This isn't like Jack. Too sinister, too elaborate. He'd do something far simpler, and much more foolhardy; and it would undoubtedly work, so we'd be done before we'd started to counter it. Besides, Jack had his shot at immortality long ago; he could've taken it over me if he'd really wanted to, or he'd know that I'd more than willingly hand the position over to him. Though the idea of him terrorizing the seas in the Dutchman is quite alarming. No, this is someone else. Someone we haven't come up against before, who only surfaced during my absence."

He didn't need to voice the concern he felt; Bootstrap could see it plainly writ, a spark of apprehension in the steely eyes that blazed at the offending paper.

"Set a course for Tortuga," he said distractedly to Bootstrap. "It's the nearest sea port; we can deposit our shipwreck survivor there."

"Aye, Captain."

As Bootstrap lumbered off to the helm, Will set about writing his letters whilst Swoop provided an impatient commentary from his perch, eager to earn another fish at the letter's destination.

* * *

Will bid his new-found friend farewell, gladly taking up the offer to share his cabin boy's duties with him on the morrow, and returned to the cabin he and his mother had been assigned. It was a roomy one, though one hastily prepared for them; a hammock strung across a corner was Will's bed, and a screen made from a bit of grating and some spare sails had thoughtfully been provided for Elizabeth to change behind. Probably the captain's work; he seemed a pedantic man.

Elizabeth was standing at the open window, her loose hair freed from the hat and billowing like a mizzen shroud in the sea breeze, a contented smile on her face.

"Isn't the sea air wonderful?" she murmured, turning to face him as he entered the berth. "So fresh, so free; it's almost alive."

Will realized just how much his mother loved the sea. She looked perhaps the happiest he had seen her, leaning on the sill, an occasional smattering of spray anointing her cheek and her hair an unruly cloud about her shoulders. She seemed to be savouring every moment of their time beneath the sails. Despite the greater possibilities of danger here, she seemed more relaxed here somehow – more free.

Seeing at a glance that he had something to say, Elizabeth turned from the open portal. Will told her all about the strange man in the galley. She listened attentively, nodding in satisfaction when he was done.

"Well observed. I won't keep anything from you and treat you like a child, William Turner; I won't pretend this is some pleasure cruise. Some men may want _that_ desperately, and the type of men we may be dealing with will have destroyed whole ships, killed entire crews for less. We need to work together on this. I'm going to do my very best to keep us both safe, but I'm a woman and perceived as a guest on this ship. I won't hear as much as you will hear, running around the ship with the cabin boy. If you see anyone or hear any talk, no matter how slight the suspicion, I want you to tell me about it first chance you get."

Will nodded, feeling suddenly solemn. "What about the man in the galley?" he asked.

"He may be just a grumpy sailor, but he's worth consideration. We'll have to keep our eyes on him."

Will nodded again. He had thought she would take more drastic action, considering her previous words.

Her next ones checked him. "The main thing, though, is secrecy. If we start making a move against someone we suspect is an enemy, if they get wind that we suspect or if we get the wrong man and a real foe finds out, we'll be done in; it would be easy to murder us in our sleep and jump ship, child's play for these kinds of men. You can't breathe a word of who your father is or where we're going; it'd have us thrown overboard for fear that we're sea demons, or we'd have half the world's pirates upon us, trying to take _that_. So you can't breathe a word; we have to pretend we're going to meet relatives on Dominica. Alright? Even the cabin boy can't know a thing."

Will nodded again. He understood; his mother had had previous experience with pirates, she knew what she spoke of. As much as he was enjoying being on the ship, Will had to remember why they were making this voyage, the importance of what they had to do, and the perils which threatened its undertaking. And they just had to succeed. His father was counting on them.

At that, a familiar squawk sounded at the window. Swoop was perched on the sill, looking proud of himself.

"Swoop! Hey he found us!" Will went to the bird and reached out to untie the message bottle from his leg, feeling proud that he was now in on his parents' secrets. The bird gave his fingers a sharp nip, making him start back.

"What's wrong? Why won't he let me take it?"

"He's been trained to only let me take it, and even then he sometimes only hands it over when he's been thoroughly rewarded."

She offered Swoop a morsel of salted pork; he began to peck at it contentedly, letting Elizabeth remove the binds from his leg.

"Hmm? There are two separate letters; one's for you."

Will drew breath, his heart beating faster. It was one thing to know he had a father, and another to receive letters from that father, specifically addressed to him. He had always hoped he had a father out there somewhere on the sea, one who perhaps thought of his son occasionally. To suddenly have a father known to him, to have physical evidence, contact almost directly with him…and considering who his father was, it made it even more amazing…

With a knowing smile, Elizabeth handed Will his letter. He took it almost reverently. It was a single heavy sheet, folded and sealed with a circle of navy-blue wax, stamped with the initials _W.T._

With bated breath, Will broke the seal and read.

_My dear son,_

_It has been so many years since I was fortunate enough to witness your birth. I can't begin to imagine the kind of man you are growing up to be. A good man, I'm sure; an honest, brave, and trustworthy man. With a mother such as ours, you could not grow up to be anything else._

_I can't tell you how much I look forward to meeting you, seeing how you have grown and holding conversation with you for the first time. You will have questions for me I know; your mother told me of how she explained who I am to you. My circumstances don't change me, don't make me any different from other men or any less eager to be your father. Your mother has written to me about you since you were born, and I can say with certainty that I am proud to have you carry my name. _

_No apology can make up for the years we've missed, and with a heavy heart I beg forgiveness. God knows I've run home to you many times in my mind; Swoop is the embodiment of my wish to live alongside you as a family. Life is a strange thing, and in particular life upon the seas is unpredictable; yet I have made the best choices I could, and I stand by those choices, despite where they I have led me. While the consequences of those choices are hardly fair, especially on you and your mother, I know I made the right choices by my code of principles, in order to best protect those around me. I did what I thought most right, and must now deal with the fate life has given me, the choice no longer mine. I hope you can understand. _

_You are growing up, going to sea, and will undoubtedly be forced to make choices soon too; I know you will make the right choices for yourself and your mother. Though it is a heavy responsibility I leave you, please try to protect her as best you can in my stead. Take care of yourself as well, until we meet at the rendezvous point. I look forward to then, counting the days until we meet at last._

_Ever yours, in this realm or any other,_

_Your loving father,_

_William Turner_

Will stared at the words, almost disbelieving. All these years of wanting to hear something, some word…any reassurance from his estranged father would have delighted him beyond words, and this was so much more than anything he had ever dared to imagine…

Elizabeth, looking up with a slight concerned frown from her own letter, had it melt from her face into a smile the instant she saw the awe and joy on her son's own face. She needn't ask what the letter said; the look in Will's eyes, the brilliance of his smile as he looked up at her in silent wonder, was enough for her.

Elizabeth tucked the letter away carefully in a water-proof wallet with similar documents and called Will over to sit beside her on the foot of her bed.

"Now, Master Turner," she said in a business-like tone, "let's discuss our plan of conduct upon this ship…"


	10. Chapter 9: Old Alliances

**Chapter 9 – Old Alliances**

The old sailor sent a stream of cusses after the lad who ran alongside his small jetty, spraying sand and water droplets over the chart he had been diligently sketching. However, re-examining his work, he decided, on second thought, that the inclusion of organic material gave his drawing more realism. He looked about for the turtle he had been drawing, realizing it had swum into a large shadow. What was there to cast a shadow here? He'd carefully picked this quiet spot round the headland from the main Tortuga port so that he and his subject wouldn't be disturbed.

He looked up to find a fine ship quite literally staring down at him, its figurehead with its blank stare boring into his very soul it seemed. He had been so engrossed in his work, he hadn't even noticed its approach.

Suppressing a superstitious shudder at the sight of its black sails and sombre, antiquated appearance, he examined it more closely. Surely he recognized this figurehead…a skeletal form it was, but it seemed different from that which he remembered. This one was dressed in the semblance of a sailor, with an elaborate hat atop its skull and heavy cuffs falling over its bony fingers. Instead of the scythe he remembered suspended over its head, there was now a great bird with its wide wings outstretched, giving this deathly visage an incongruously angelic appearance…

A winged Death…a _flying Dutchman_…

He started as a loud splash sounded close by him. A huge black bird, rather like the one on the masthead, plunged into the water and re-emerged with a struggling fish clutched in its beak. It perched on the ship's rail to devour its fresh-caught meal, then fluttered to the waiting arm of the man standing upon the deck. The man stroked its glossy feathers absently, his eyes staring out at the wild tangle of the jungle, beyond which stood the merry pirate metropolis of Tortuga, with a wistfulness in his expression…

The old sailor stared. If he hadn't seen that very same mournful expression beside him at the Black Pearl's capstan-

"Hey! Hey there! Master Will, Will Turner- Cap'n Turner!"

Will started from his reverie and glanced around, searching for the source of the voice. Glancing downwards, he saw the whiskered old sailor standing right beneath him, as it were, upon a tiny jetty, a sketchbook clutched in his hand. Will squinted, recognizing the man. Of all the people, in all the places-

"Gibbs?!" he asked incredulously. The sailor responded with a merry halloo and a jaunty wave. "What are you doing here?" There was an eager note in his voice; after so long in isolation upon the Dutchman, unable to seek out old friends who dwelt on land, almost any familiar face was a welcome sight.

"I be drawin' sea turtles!"

Remembering the last time he had heard a mention of sea turtles from Gibbs' lips, Will was slightly taken aback. "What manner of island madness have you caught? The same as Jack, perhaps?"

Gibbs roared with good-natured laughter at that. "Let me aboard and I'll tell ye all 'bout it!"

A fine old bottle of port had been set out upon the table in the captain's quarters when Gibbs entered it. The two men drank – well Gibbs did, quite heartily – and talked things over amicably, both rather happy to be in old company. Will had learnt most of what he knew of actual sailing more from Gibbs than from Jack, having tended many a ship beside the older man all those years ago, when he had been an inexperienced deck-hand; he had a respect for Gibbs, despite his humble appearance and coarse mannerisms. Gibbs himself had rather a paternal liking for Will, whose honest and determined nature he appreciated, reminding him much of old mates he had had during his time with the Royal Navy.

Gibbs chuckled as Will explained his former passenger's haste to disembark. "He looked like 'e'd got a bit o' the ghost in 'im! 'E was runnin' fit to tread upon water 'e was, cruisin' like a sloop and didn't look to be slowin' any time soon. Does right to abide by superstitious feelin's sometimes, though. There be too many fearful things in the ocean's depths to take a case of the ol' heebie-jeebies too lightly. Not when there be fearsome men like you lurkin' 'neath the waves, Cap'n!" and he raised his glass to Will in acknowledgement, tipping back the fine vintage with gusto.

"What of you, Master Gibbs?" Will asked with a reminiscent smile at the man's gluttony for fine wine. "You're not out chasing the fountain of youth alongside Jack? I should think that you should be more interested it in than him."

Gibbs grinned ruefully, readily acknowledging that since they had last met, there was now more grey in his whiskers. He proudly opened his sketchbook, showing Will his biological diagrams of marine life, turtles carefully drawn with a sharp stick of lead. Gibbs must've had a surprisingly steady hand, when sober, to patiently draw such fine illustrations.

"I be getting' too old to go gallivantin' round. Had my share of a pillager's booty," he declared. "Old sea legs like these need to know when to settle down on land. I always wanted to study fauna or botany, go on them explorer ships to new worlds an' document the undiscovered species of far off lands. But when I started out as a young 'un, I was undereducated, and now most lands 'ave long been discovered these days, neatly labelled on the charts. I have more modest aspirations now; I got a nice bit o' pension, a few choice heirlooms saved away from old adventures, an' I'm happy to live humble-like, with me islander hut an' hip-flask an' sketchbooks, with crabs crawlin' in an' out me door. A man needs to know when to stop chasin' dreams about the seas an' start lookin' for the ones within 'is reach."

"I see," said Will quietly, sipping his mug of wine thoughtfully. Gibbs' words had struck at something deep within him, touching upon a thought that had been festering in his mind for the past ten years. _When will I be free to settle down as an old man like that? _he wondered bleakly. _If I live ten-score years more, I have in that time only ten days in which to truly live the life I want, with those I love, if they indeed live that long themselves. What kind of life is that? What's the point of having this ship to command, chasing brigands about the waters which I call mine own territory, when all I want is to settle down on one bit of land with my family? Why bother existing at all, if solely for something as worthless to myself as this?_

Gibbs looked at the introspective expression on Will's face, divining that as the young man appeared to look deep into his tankard, he was in fact looking deep into himself, sent hither by Gibbs' own words.

"You be lucky, mate," he said quietly, confidentially. "I 'ad a woman as waited for me once, somewhere far from this disreputable place. A woman o' real quality. I had big dreams for meself. I wanted to make meself a better man for her, wanted to make meself the best I could be for her. I tried to climb high as I could in the Navy, tryin' to impress 'er like. But I was an unfit man for a high rank, low-born and common in me ways. When me big dreams never came true, I fell to drink, and drove her away from me. She's long gone now, all but forgotten after all these years. At least you won yerself a faithful lady who'll wait for you, no matter what yer past beginnin's or future circumstances. You 'ppreciate her all the more, won't fail her like I did me own lady love. Yer a more noble man than I ever amounted to."

Will was touched by the man's personal words. "You're quite a good man yourself, Joshamee Gibbs."

Gibbs, seeing his words had had effect, patted the young man companionably on the arm; the two of them knocked their mugs together in understanding.

"Where ye be headin' next lad?" Gibbs asked after another sip, something occurring to him. "Why, speakin' o' such, it must almost be ten years now since…?"

Will nodded, a slip of a smile lightening his serious young face. _It does youth well to smile,_ Gibbs thought to himself. Though ten years had passed since they had last met, Will was still a lad compared to himself. Yet how little of the lad was left in this hard, weary face, with its steely expression and commanding mien. When he smiled, however, the difference was astounding; the earnest and optimistic nature of the lad glimmered through in that brief moment.

"There's still about two weeks until the ten years run out. Now that our shipwreck survivor is safe and sound, our next berth will be at _that island_."

Gibbs nodded knowingly. He knew well the place that Will spoke of, the scene of so much tragedy, the island where he had spent those last fleeting hours with _her_…the spot upon which a young man's hopes were now charted…

"Here's to a timely an' heart-felt reunion," Gibbs declared, his intonation filled with absolute sincerity. "May the bitter dregs o' the past decade be washed away with the sweetness o' a new day's vintage."

Both men raised their mugs silently, solemnly, at this toast, and drank deeply.

They talked a while longer, Bootstrap looking in and joining them for a time. Gibbs was surprised and delighted to see him, having known him casually many years ago and having been sorry to hear of his death. Thus reunited, they had numerous stories of their former captain to share, comparing wild and fabulously embellished stories of Jack Sparrow for Will's entertainment.

"An' how is me ol' mate Jack these days anyway?" Gibbs asked. "Bein' in this place I only occasionally hear anythin' of goin's on on the sea when I head down to The Faithful Bride, and that's hardly reliable talk as goes on down there. Is 'e still goin' or has he finally met 'is maker?"

"If he hasn't, it's not from want of trying," Will murmured with a rueful grin. "He goes to see Elizabeth in Port Royal every so often, brings me word of their doings on the rare occasions I meet him on the seas. Tries to get free drinks out of her, from what she's written me. Last I saw of him myself, he was still looking for the fountain of youth, in the form of a rather mean-looking whale he was chasing in a longboat. They could be half way across the Atlantic by now; who knows where he is. Considering he's Jack Sparrow, after all, he could be just about anywhere."

* * *

Jack clamped a hand to his belly to try and stifle his rumbling stomach. The pirate in the storeroom door glanced around vaguely, wondering if the _Walrus_ had hit some rough swells, seeing as her timbers were groaning; then he returned to his duties, thinking no more of it. 

Jack relaxed against the large barrel he was hidden behind. That had been a stressful episode. It called for a drink.

He tugged free the dagger he had stuck up to its handle through a knot hole in the barrel's side. A trickle of amber liquid flowed out; he carefully caught it in an old tinder box he had found on the storeroom floor. Too impatient to let it more than half-fill, he replaced the dagger to stop the flow and sculled the draught back in a single gulp. It did plenty for his nerves, but little for his empty gut.

It had been five days since he had swiped a handful of hardtack from a pirate's private stash, tucked away behind two kegs of powder on a storage shelf; he had exhausted it in two. If he dug around a bit, he'd probably find more, but hard tack was just so…_hard_. And he was getting bored. He had made a nest of sorts for himself on a pile of spare sails and ballast sandbags, taking a swig of rum every so often. He had passed the days in a relatively pleasant, but rather uneventful rum-induced stupor. Sitting around drunk was one thing; guiding a ship through a hazardous reef whilst drunk was another experience entirely, and there was no doubt as to which was the more interesting experience. Thus he had decided to navigate the hazardous route to the galley, in search of more appetising morsels.

And rather hazardous it was. Even a simple trip to the latrine was an exercise in stealth. The storeroom had been relatively deserted during the first few days of sailing, whilst the galley had been fully stocked ready for the voyage and the pirates preoccupied with their duties tending the ship. But now that the initial hectic days were over and the roster of daily duties established, more pirates were loitering in the store during their spare time, or coming to fetch goods for the stove which were lacking closer at hand.

It was there in the galley that the tastier fare would be kept, away from the greedy hands of the common crew. So that was the mission Jack, with his usual selfish disregard for his greater mission, was going to risk undertaking.

He listened carefully for the sound of footsteps in the corridors, then tottered swiftly through them, his boots emitting an occasional dull thunk as he tread on a particularly resonant board. He scurried behind a door jamb, then darted within a thick coil of rope, then slithered beneath a slackly-hanging hammock. He thus made his furtive progress towards the galley, from which savoury perfumes coiled, filling the ship's underbelly with a desirable aroma and making his own underbelly growl again, threatening to give him away if he didn't get it a portion of whatever smelt so scrumptious.

He paused in the doorway, peeping cautiously in. Someone was working at the stovetop with their back to him. A woman, it looked like; her skirts swayed as she turned towards him slightly. He scurried back a bit down the corridor, but she merely picked up a plate of dried scallops which had been on the bench at her elbow and tipped it into the pot. As she turned her back to him again, Jack decided a little firm coercion might be fitting. He began to creep stealthily through the tiny kitchen area, towards the woman's vulnerable back.

"No need to be so sneaky 'bout it," she muttered suddenly, and Jack froze. "It ain't ready yet, and it won't be tasting too good til it's done, so quit creepin' round me galley and make yourself useful above deck til supper time, or you'll get a ladle to the side o' your face."

Jack, made uneasy by this unexpected confrontation, stopped in mid-stride, trying to decide whether to retreat or not. As he dallied, the woman sighed impatiently and began to turn around.

_Too late now then,_ Jack thought, and reached for his knife. A moment later, he realized his knife was still stuck in the barrel back in the storeroom. A moment after that, he forgot the knife completely.

The woman whirled around with a frustrated glance, more galling words on her tongue; they stayed there, as she started back in surprise.

"_Jack Sparrow?!_"

Jack's amazement matched hers.

"_Anamaria?!_"

_Slap!_

The sharp strike to the side of his face snapped him out of his shock with an even greater shock. He rubbed his smarting cheek.

"Is that any way to treat an old friend? What did I ever do to deserve that?"

She ignored this statement; indeed, her glare as she faced him was far from friendly.

"What are you doing _here_?"

"What are _you_ doing here?"

"I asked first."

"I'm a captain. My question has priority."

"Not on this ship it doesn't, and you're lucky I so much as lower myself to look at you. I have half a mind to sing out right not at the top of me lungs that we have a stowa-"

Before she had a chance to say any more, Jack clamped a hand over her mouth.

"I'd 'preciate it for the sake of our past relationship if you kept it to yerself, love."

She tore his hand away. "I was going to say 'but I won't, cos I'd even rather have you here in me galley than the filth as calls themselves sailors on this ship'. At least you, for all your other short-comings, used to let me lend a hand in the runnin' o' the _ Pearl_ and didn't keep me squanderin' below deck as nothin' but a lousy kitchen maid. Hussy like me's only fit to scrub the plates, they say, eh? I've long had half a mind to poison 'em all, if I could just get my hands on the stuff, and if they didn't make me sup from everthin' first-"

Jack held his hands up for silence. "And just what are you doin' as kitchen maid on this ship?"

"You remember the man who offered to take me on as mate last time I saw you in Tortuga?"

"You mean the one you were flirtin' with to make me jealous?" Jack favoured her with a suggestive grin.

"The one who offered to take me on as mate," Anamaria repeated firmly. Jack opened his mouth to contest the claim, saw the look in her eye and closed it again, allowing her to continue uninterrupted.

"He says 'e likes the look of me – smart as paint, 'e says – and offers to give me a job on 'is ship. A crime for a fine lass such as me not to be given a high rankin' position amongst the crew, 'e says, an bein' a woman bein' none of it, he says, if you're a fine sailor, you're a fine sailor, whether you tread the deck in pants or skirt. I tell 'im I'll be havin' no place lower than mate, as I've had my place on board a ship abused before-" here she gave Jack a sharp look "-and I won't take no loose behaviour from menfolk in the crew. Sure as sure, he tells me, I'll answer to none but 'im and if I dislike the way a man looks at me, I send 'im off with his tail 'tween his legs in fear of a thrashin'. So with me thinkin' it might be the best I can hope for, seein' as I never be getting' my own ship-" here she looked daggers at Jack, who wore an expression of feigned innocent confusion on his face "-I jump ship an' join the crew o' the _Walrus_.

"Course it was all a ruse. They keep up the charade for barely a day, then they rustle me up, intendin' to exchange me for pay with some trader in the east who sells females for men's pleasure. They don't count on me bein' able to give 'em a bit of a wallop unarmed, and when I've knocked the teeth outta half a dozen men's mouths, the gunner, who's a massive man, lifts me up an' dumps me in the bilges, and they leave me there I don't know how long, a few days, til I'm too weak to put up much of a fight. And then they drag me back before that man, an 'e says 'e underestimated me, that I be a woman in a million, that I could be more use than 'e first thought. And 'e strikes me round the head like a coward, knocked me out cold, an' when I wake up in the galley, I'm told to cook for em', and to turn me vicious nature toward the good o' the Walrus and her crew, that I should be prepared to fight for her and do me quartermaster duties well, else me throat be slit without a second's hesitation. So I cook, and I wait for the opportune moment when I can jump ship unstopped and take a long boat as far from 'em as I can get. And you, Jack Sparrow," she said, shaking a dangerous-looking finger at him and eyeing him with a hard gaze, "you had better not be interferin' with that opportunity."

Jack waved his hands soothingly. "Wouldn't dream of it, love. You see now that there be worse men on the ocean than me. At least I let you handle the _ Pearl_'s helm. Twice. And you had the pick of whatever chores you liked; you did it all, just like any member of the crew. You weren't made to be motherin' us."

"Speaking of which, Jack, where is your crew? Why, of all the ships on the seven seas, are you on the same ruddy boat as me?"

Jack leaned in confidentially. "You remember why we set out from Tortuga on the _Interceptor_ about eleven years ago?"

"Yeah, to save that upper-class broad and her wimpish boy-love. Crazy as you, the pair of 'em! Too caught up in their own affairs, never cared if the rest of us lived or died undertaking their business! And I never got that ship as settlement of your debt to me neither!"

"I gave you the Pearl whilst I was on the Isla de Muerta; you gave 'er back."

"I was letting you reassume command. If I'd known you'd never pay me back – I suspected as much anyway – I would've kept her for meself and left you high and dry."

"Well, even if you wanted to now, you can't anyway, cos first you'd have to get it back off he who already left me without me ship once and has gone and done it again a second time."

"What on earth are you talking about?!"

"I haven't seen the _ Pearl _these last ten years; Barbossa's taken off with her again."

"_Barbossa?!_" she stared at him incredulously. "Barbossa's dead!"

"You be speakin' ta me, girl?"

A voice sounded just outside the galley's entrance. Anamaria quickly forced Jack down behind the bench out of sight and turned to face the speaker who appeared not two seconds later in the doorway.

"I'm just sayin' to meself, first mate Anderson, that these vegetables are near dead and decayin'. We make nowhere near enough trips into port to pick up fresh supplies."

"Not givin' ye enough chances to jump ship, eh, poppet?" the man smirked. Anamaria glared fiercely at him. He'd hit it right on the head. "Ye do yer duty well without complaint or tryin' to escape, or you know what becomes of you!" He drew his finger across his neck, making a horrid sound in this throat to punctuate the action. "The crew be gettin' hungry. Make sure that's ready, free from mouldy vegetables, in an hour.

He turned to leave, then turned back again hurriedly as he heard a loud thud followed by a vicious hiss behind him.

"Stock's boiling over," Anamaria said with a casual shrug. "I should let it boil over, let this whole boat and her rotten crew be burnt to ashes."

"You try it, love, and those of us left alive will throw you in the flames."

With one last threatening look, he lumbered off.

Jack popped his fingers in his mouth. "You trod on them on purpose!"

Anamaria shrugged sullenly. "I needed to take my anger out on someone, and you were closer to stomp on than 'im. Now, you'll be the one in danger if ye don't explain what you're doin' here, no lies, tricks or falsehoods." She held up a heavy pan, wielding it with murderous intent.

Jack scurried backward across the floor, out of harm's reach. "Ok, ok, I'll tell you it all, but I warn you, the truth is far stranger than any story I could invent."

"I highly doubt it; you have a naturally creative, dishonest mind, Jack Sparrow."

"At least it'll be entertaining then."

"Whilst you entertain me, why make yourself useful and peel these for me?" She tossed him several onions.

"Now you're trying to make me cry?"

"Exactly."

Jack picked up an onion and sniffed it testily. Not altogether pleasant, he decided, but a grumbling stomach sometimes couldn't be choosy. He was about to take a bite out of it, when Anamaria banged the pan down viciously on the cook top like a clarion. Jack gave her a furtively glance, his mouth half-closed on a papery onion skin. Then he took up a knife and obediently began to peel it instead, speaking as he did so.

"It all started about ten years ago. I tell you, those Turners will be the death of me- well, technically one of them already was…"

* * *

Will and Elizabeth settled into an easy routine upon the _ Lusitania_. Will would help Morgan every day with his cabin boy's duties, splitting the tasks between the two of them. The workload didn't bother him at all; all the same, the moment he slipped into his hammock each night was a welcome one, the day's work settling a comfortable drowsiness upon his energetic young limbs, feeling like a true sailor as he slept suspended in his swinging bed, just like any other crew member. Now that he had earnt the older boy's approval, Morgan proved an eager and companionable mate. The two would often work side by side, exchanging an occasional word, a quip about the captain when he was out of earshot, or snatches of sea song which were often taken up by the entire crew as well. There was a merry atmosphere of camaraderie beneath the _ Lusitania_'s sails. 

Elizabeth enjoyed the trip as well. She would walk the deck regularly, sometimes in a simple cotton frock which drew the crew's admiring glances, other times in men's trousers which accentuated her slender waist and allowed her to clamber nimbly up the rigging to help unfurl the sails, a feat which won her even more respect. The captain had at first tried to discourage such common and improper conduct on her part, but since he was too conscientious to launch an all-out protest, and she was too rebellious to alter her behaviour for the sake of the conservative man, he soon desisted, and paced the quarter deck anxiously whenever she ventured aloft.

The trip, on the whole, was a thoroughly enjoyable one, though fears still lurked in the back of Will's mind. On more than one occasion he had woken abruptly in the night, his fitful dreams of dark waves and bright knives, still-beating hearts and dripping blood and coarse laughter causing him to throw himself out of his flimsy bed, grappling with unseen assailants in his sleep. To his uneasy mind, rough waves on the ship's side would become sinister footsteps upon the deck, harsh bird cries the death-shriek of a murdered man. Often he would wake during the night to see his mother sitting up, watching the door warily as though expecting, or daring, someone to burst in on them.

In such frames of mind, Will would think of the sinister-looking man in the galley and shudder. He tried to avoid visiting the kitchen when he could, giving duties that would take him there to Morgan, an arrangement the other boy hardly minded as the cook would often slip him a small treat for his troubles. Somehow, Will couldn't shift the image of the kitchen hand's sullen stare from his mind. He knew that both he and his mother would feel a lot better when they finally reached their destination.

* * *

A few idle men were holding conference behind some barrels stowed near the ship's prow. Their voices were furtive, secretive; yet their words resonated with unrestrained violence, with impatience that grated in their semi-coherent mutterings like a rusty knife scraped from its unyielding scabbard. 

"Speak softly? _Speak softly?!_ I 'ad enough of speakin' bloody softly! That swarmy lace-adorned imbecile what calls 'imself cap'n is givin' us a hazin', an' he be enjoyin' it too. Damn bourgeoisie steppin' on the common man like 'e was cockroaches. Us panderin' to 'im when we could be not only cap'n of this very boat ourselves, but lord o' every ocean it could possibly sail upon as well! So I ain't in no mind to be speakin' softly, an' rightly so I say! If _he_ don't wanna be takin' that for 'imself in good time, I be takin' it afore 'im, and 'e can try an' get it off o' _me_! 'E likes this set-up, flatters 'imself he's an honest gentleman, eh? Honesty ain't ever won a fortune or kept a crew."

The other men murmured assent at his words, responding in fierce growls better suited to street mongrels squabbling over a scrap than to civilized men.

"Speak softly?" the man continued in a scornful rasp, spitting bitterly upon the deck. "Speak softly round a mere woman an' child? I ain't afeared o' no strumpet and 'er whelp, no matter who the husband is. He ain't here, an' I be here at an opportune moment. I see no point in speakin' soft when I can take what I ruddy want without a word at all. I'll storm that there cabin an' get the key an' the chest right this moment, an' send that fool Bellamy, the Turner wench and 'er little pip-squeak o' a son down to speak softly with the fishes on the seabed below!"

At these words, there was a muffled clatter close at hand. The pirates peered round a stout barrel. A pasty white face moaned in fear and retreated hastily, hopelessly before the malicious stares directed at it. Having already lost the sticky brush from his hand to mar the cleanly swabbed decks in his shock, more tar fell from the pail in the lad's hand, trembling uncontrollably as the gang of ruffians advanced sinisterly upon him.

His thoughts flew to his friend faster than he himself could, his warning left unspoken. Will was at the other end of the ship when the knife flashed and the pail fell limply from the pudgey hand, young flesh made clammy with death's touch before its time. With a louder thud, Morgan fell beside his discarded brush, the tar laying in thick streaks upon the deck from the upended bucket, alongside his own spilled life's blood.

With the first man down and the scent of blood rejuvenating their peace-dulled senses, the pirates drew blade and pistol. The first warning shot whistled through the mainsail; the _ Lusitania_ instantaneously descended into turmoil.


	11. Chapter 10: Mutiny

**Chapter 10 – Mutiny**

Will poked his head out from under deck, coming out of the cargo hold. The deck was in chaos. He could see a band of vicious men cutting down sailors, who put up a feeble resistance. His stomach turned over. The faces he saw stretched in blood-thirsty snarls as they dealt death blows were ones he recognized, members of the crew. He shivered in simple childish fear, his blood turning cold in his young veins. It was one thing to feel brave in times of peace, quite another to be faced so unexpectedly with his first sight of death. All the more terrible was the fact that the men who had turned on them had been known to them, ones of their own. These weren't strangers or marauders from elsewhere; these were men of their own ship, mutineers.

His mother's words echoed dimly in his mind… _Some men may want that desperately, and the type of men we may be dealing with will have destroyed whole ships, killed entire crews for less… we'd have half the world's pirates upon us, trying to take that…_

_That_…his mother, in the cabin with _the chest_…

At that he wasted no more time. Judging no one paid particular mind to the cargo hold entrance or knew he was in it, he ducked swiftly out onto the deck and darted behind some boxes tethered to the deck; he moved swiftly on, darting from place to place, starting back as a brigand rushed past him, a man fell with a terrible cry near him. He was small and stayed low, thus making his way steadily along the deck, carefully choosing his next hiding place and creeping stealthily between points.

He stopped behind a barrel, panting for breath, not so much from exertion as from the fear that gripped his chest, immobilising him as much as any bodily fatigue. He was so close to the cabin…if he could make it just a bit further…

His breath nearly stopped in his lungs. His whole body felt rigid, numb; the blood drained from his face. A pale, limp hand was lolling upon the deck, its fingers daubed with tar and fresh streaks spread upon the deck around it.

Will's thoughts seemed to have quietened themselves to an echo of their former voices. _Morgan…_his mind repeated that one word vaguely…_Morgan…our duties…just this morning, not an hour past…our jobs…we flipped a copper…I won…I tidied the storeroom…I won, and he had to apply the pitch to the rail…tar…that was the job he had taken…the tar…Morgan…_

Scarcely daring to breathe, with a greater and greater sense of dread seeming to choke every shallow gasp he took, Will sidled cautiously round the barrel…

The owner of the hand came half into view. Morgan was slumped on his side, half-obscured behind another barrel, a rivulet of blood hanging from his lips and great clots forming beneath his bloodied tunic. The lifeless hand, inches from the brush it had dropped, seemed to be straining towards it, striving to recommence the action it had performed in life. The sightless eyes appeared, to Will's horrified sight, to contain recognition as he entered the path of their blank gaze.

Though he had expected to see it, nothing could have truly prepared Will for the sight of his friend lying dead before him. He faltered, half-fainting, his knees dropping from beneath him, reeling as though he had been physically struck. He was too numbed by shock, too overcome with horror, to cry out loud. This thing before him, so obviously in the guise of his friend, seemed somehow a different creature, so stiff, so pallid and pale it was…he remembered his friend that morning, so jovial and full of life, threatening him with the tar brush as they parted ways to carry out their respective tasks…this wasn't his friend before him, he had to be elsewhere…this thing before him, it was a nothing, a mere corpse…but Morgan was…Morgan had been…_Morgan…_

Tears streamed silently down his cheeks. At less than ten years of age, Will was struck by the sheer horror of the world of adults, the world of greed, deceit, murder; the world of piracy. Slowly, slowly, as he stared at his friend, the sounds of the on-deck fighting gradually returning to his stunned senses, his blood began to boil, the breath to heave once again passionately in the young breast. His jaw was clenched, the slim boyish shoulders set, the small balled fist trembling in rage. _It was so senseless…there was no reason…Morgan had been a good friend…why was this even happening…_

"Ha! Here's the other young 'un, the Turner lad! Here to join his friend in the hereafter!"

A raucous voice broke through his livid thoughts, grating on his still-raw nerves. A face leered down at him; Will recognized the man as Israel Hands. A stout, hard-working man, with a boisterous laugh that would ring across the deck as the men told jests during breaks in their duties. Will had always found him good company, one of the merriest and most companionable of men. Now that same bellowing laughter held malicious intent towards him. It was like he was meeting Hands for the first time; this was a stranger he saw before him, the bare blade in his hand bloodied by the life-founts of innocent men. The way that he leered down upon himself and the pathetic form of his dead friend so infuriated Will, Hands himself might have wielded the knife that slew Morgan, such was the hatred he felt for the mutineer. It seemed to fly off him in flames; for all that, Hands merely laughed in the face of them, amused by the thunderous expression on such a scrawny young boy's face.

With a gleeful cackle, Hands raised his blood-drenched sabre. Will had no room in his heart or mind to be scared, no time for fearful hesitation. He ducked the blow; it hit the rail, harmlessly chipping away at the sturdy wood.

As he darted away, Will kicked out at Hands' legs, much like he had done to Morgan when they had had that first altercation. Launched forward with the momentum of his blow, his foot unsteadied by the still-wet tar on the boards, Hands went down heavily. Without a second glance at him, Will sprinted impetuously up the stairs towards the upper berths, no longer worrying about concealing himself. His furious young heart cursed Hands a million times over with every cuss he had heard in the Benbow's barroom. He promised himself that his duty to his family alone would keep him from dealing with Hands, and that if he ever crossed paths with the ruffian again, the man would not live out the duration of the encounter.

He clambered up the stairs, seeing the doorway to the cabin ahead of him. It seemed he was late into the battle; one or two fallen men and numerous debris of combat – dropped knives, a shattered pistol, tatters hewn from clothes – littered the ground outside the cabin's entrance. Will's heart fluttered in apprehension, feeling he had neglected his foremost duties; amongst this mix there was no sign of his mother, nor had he perceived her upon the deck. He hoped that this was because she was safely tucked away in their room; she must be worrying madly about him.

He sprung upon the door handle, praying she was concealed inside. The handle rattled in his grasp, but would not yield.

Panic overtook him. Fear was regaining a hold over his temper. He tugged relentlessly at the handle, bashing his shoulder against the portal, but it would not budge. The handle jangled uselessly in his grasp, much like his own nerves were rattling within him.

"Mother!" he called out, his voice sounding pathetically forlorn against the ring of clashing blades and cacophony of vicious battle cries. He was alone and desperate, deserted.

Two men heard him and clambered towards him, settling their former opponents hastily and efficiently. Will was left with little doubt as to who they would dispatch next. They mounted the sets of stairs on either side of him, cornering him between them. In moments, their fierce blades would be upon him. Poor Will felt himself freeze up, seeing death approaching him on either side, and giving himself up to fate, he hoped against hope that some miraculous apparition would save him.

A muffled scraping reached his ears through the firmly closed door at his back. A second later he heard the latch fall; a strong and not overly gentle hand whisked him into the room as the brigands approached no more than five paces on either side of him. The hard grasp swiftly released his shoulder as a figure stepped past him. In an instant, two blades flashed in the air, pointing right and left; the pirates, not having time to perceive what they hastened towards, threw themselves heavily onto the sideways thrusts of the waiting blades. Both men fell to either side of the door, stone dead, as Elizabeth jerked her blades free. Hastily she withdrew; throwing her swords down, she slammed the door, turned the lock, and thrust the sturdy brass head of the bed, which she had freed from the metal strips that had bolted it to the floor by aid of ball and powder, firmly beneath the handle, wedging the door closed. Thus the room was transformed into a secure stronghold, with Will now safely inside.

She was in a dishevelled state, having risen little more than an hour ago; her hair was unbrushed, and she was clad only in her undergarments and petticoat, boots hastily thrust on beneath the lacy ruffles of her attire. Her face was pale and drawn, more fearful than Will had ever seen it in his life, missing the usual feisty spark that dwelt there. As she turned from the door, her expression melted from a fierce scowl to an almost despairing look as she gave a faint cry and flung herself at Will, catching hold of him in her arms with a great shuddering sob. In an instant, the fearsome battle-ready valkyrie who had passed him in the doorway was gone, and in her place was his anxious mother.

"I was so worried about you," she whispered into his hair, clutching him to her. Will let himself sob unashamedly into her shirt, too overcome by both intense relief and acute sorrow to put on a show of manly bravado, to hold back the childish tears which stung his eyes. Every horror he had witnessed, every intense emotion and biting stab of despair he felt, was soothed in her embrace. For now, he was safe; whilst his mother held him, he regained some glimmer of hope in his heart. She would know what to do and how to protect them. Themselves, and _that_.

"They killed Morgan," he managed to say thickly, his voice trembling. Now that he had time to really realize it, it hit him full force; the friend he had known would never speak to him, share a joke with him, run the deck or race up the rigging beside him again. Morgan was lost to the world, lost to him, forever.

"Why did they do it?" he asked, raising his tear-streaked face to look up at Elizabeth. "He wasn't a threat to them, no danger. He had no idea how to use a sword…I tried to teach him, but he still couldn't protect himself…he was just a kid, he couldn't harm them or offer them anything. They didn't need to…to kill…" Fresh tears welled up in his eyes and he hid his face in her bodice again.

Elizabeth cradled him against her, wishing that with her embrace she could draw all the feelings of hurt and grief from his young body. This was all she had been trying to protect her son from; every terrible vision and heart-rendering experience she had tried to shield him from was now written in his tear-stained face.

"Because they could," she said softly, tenderly stroking his back as his shoulders shook with fresh sobs. "They did it because they could. There's no allowed or not allowed, no innocent or guilty, right or wrong in pirate lore. There's only what one can do, and what one can't do. They don't care who a person is; so long as someone can be killed, they will kill them. There's no logic or need or gain to be gotten; only the opportunity, the ability and the raw bloodlust to kill."

Her voice was leaden as she uttered these last bitter words. Will considered them carefully. The secure world of his childhood had melted away. The familiar walls of the Benbow meant nothing here. He was far from the world of civilized men. This was a habitat for only predators and prey.

Elizabeth knelt down before him, looking levelly into his face, a hand on each of his shoulders.

"It's a bad situation we're in, but believe me, Will, when I tell you I've gotten out of worse than this, and I'll get you out of this lot. But I need you to trust me, and do exactly what I say. Even if you're scared, even if you don't understand, you need to do what I say to save yourself and us all. You have to be strong, to do everything I tell you as best you can, without hesitating. Do you think you can be strong? For me?"

Will looked steadily into her face. It seemed he had learnt so much more about her in these last few weeks, more than he had learnt in his nine years being brought up by her. Through her, he had learnt more about himself. Perhaps, a few weeks ago, tied to his bedpost by a pirate, he would've said 'No, I can't handle this'. But now…

He remembered the feeling of his blood thrilling in his veins as he perched in the crow's nest; the exhilarating sensation in the pit of his stomach as he felt the Lusitania ride a steep swell; the taste of salt air and the rush of fresh breezes, invigorating his senses. He was a different person now, saw himself and the world differently. He thought of his mother, facing a skeleton army alone, bargaining with undead pirates for her own life. He thought of his father, single-handedly outwitting the devil of the sea, steering a ghost ship through otherworldly waters. He was the child of strong, brave, capable parents. They were a part of him he had only recently discovered. And he couldn't deny what was in his blood. He couldn't just resign himself to being the powerless stripling, the scared little lad. He wanted to prove to everyone, most of all himself, that he was truly the son of William and Elizabeth Turner. Just like his father, he was willing to give up all the securities of his past life to protect those he loved.

"Yes," he said; the conviction Elizabeth saw in his eyes told her that he meant every word he said and knew the weighted responsibility they held. "Yes, I can be strong. Like you, and like Father. What else can I be otherwise?"

Despite the hope those words gave her, Elizabeth's face and heart crumpled with tears. _Your son,_ she thought to herself. _He is every bit your son, Will, he is everything that makes you the courageous, sincere, wonderful person you are. And to think, he is part of me too…I hope to God I am up to this task, that I can do justice to my two brave boys…_

With both their spirits bolstered, their energies buoyed up by adrenaline, Elizabeth set to work. She knew their survival now relied on her wits.

She darted behind the makeshift dressing screen in the corner of the room. Will, though he couldn't see her, could hear her rifling through their luggage, pushing garments aside. He heard the lid of the large sea chest clank open on its hinge, the pistols knocking against the inside of it. His keen ears picked up the clinking sounds of her loading them with fresh charges. He examined the swords she had tossed upon the floor. One was similar to his own in style; a narrow blade, supple yet strong, elegantly tapering along its razor-sharp edge. He knew she often wore this one strapped to her waist or hidden within the folds of her skirt; it was as familiar to him as his own attire. The other he had seldom seen before, except in the sea chest she had packed; it was straight as an arrow and wide, double-edged. The designed on its hilt were clearly foreign.

Between them, they had three swords and two pistols, to be used against about a dozen mutinous pirates. The honest members of their crew had been caught unawares, unable to protect themselves, and couldn't be depended on. They had little hope of a passing vessel coming to their aid; their trade route was not a common one. He and his mother were trapped in this small room, barricaded in, with who knew how many murderous pirates waiting for them without the door. The only other point of escape in the cabin was a window in the side wall little more than four feet square.

As Will finished his analysis of their situation, Elizabeth strode out from behind the screen. She had pulled on her coat over her petticoat, the garment buttoned from neck to navel. Now she returned her swords to their sheaves and buckled the belt round her waist, the scabbards incongruous dangling on either side of her lace-trimmed skirts.

"Why do these things have to happen at the most inconvenient times?" She muttered, glowering at her frill-adorned hem. "Pirates have no consideration for the decent attire of women."

Will couldn't help but grin. Making light of the situation made them both feel braver.

She disappeared behind the partition again, and this time emerged with the small sea chest, containing that so sought-after heart within it. Elizabeth seemed to hold herself stiffer, straighter as she carried the precious burden in her arms, as though her reverent stance were some homage to a holy relic.

As though sensing their objective's presence, the door gave a sudden violent shudder; the pirates were trying to force their way in. Neither Elizabeth nor Will flinched at the sound; both of them had been expecting it sooner rather than later, and glanced at the door calmly. As she surveyed the jolting door, each heavy blow reverberating right through the bed head that barred it, Elizabeth's mind was working furiously, sweeping over the circumstances and sparring for an opening they could exploit.

"First thing, we need to get this out of their reach," she said in an authorative voice, nodding to the chest. Will listened intently; obviously she had a plan. "The only other way out of this room is through the window. The captain's quarters are above ours, there's a window into his cabin above this one. I want you to take the chest and hide it somewhere up there, it'll give us some time to deal with the pirates while they try to search this room. You can reach Bellamy's cabin by climbing up this grating."

She handed Will the chest – it felt heavy in his arms, all the more so for the important contents it bore – and began to dismantle her dressing screen, stripping the canvas from the lattice-work underneath. She propped a sheet of it in the window, pushing it firmly against the wall so that it rose up the outside of the vessel like a ladder.

"Here," she added, handing him one of the pistols. "You might need this." He took it gingerly and tucked it into his belt.

"What about you?"

Her daring smile mocked the concern in his words, though her eyes were still gentle. "I've waited ten years for a good fight. I won't be cheated now."

Will grinned. Even in the face of danger, the thought of his mother in action was an inspiring one, especially judging by her previous double-weapon assault on the unwitting mutineers.

"Take care," she said to him, planting one last kiss on his forehead, just like she had each night before his bedtime for the last nine years.

"You too," he said solemnly. His manner called to mind a young soldier leaving for battle. Who knew what each would go through before they saw the other again?

Taking the chest carefully by one heavy handle, Will climbed out the window, having just enough room to squeeze out past the grating, and began to the climb it up the side of the ship. The grating tipped slightly towards the sea beneath his weight as he climbed upwards; Elizabeth leaned against it on her end, keeping it levered against the ship's planks.

Will looked down at her one last time through the criss-crossing bars. From here on in, his mission was separate from hers; he was on his own. The pride he saw in her eyes encouraged him, as did the gentle smile on her lips, which he knew was just for him.

He sent all his wishes for safe-keeping to her mentally as he looked back at her, braced stoically against the grating with a sword on either hip, the beatings on the door seeming to have become more furious behind her. Then he swung the chest over the railing of the portico that ran around the perimeter of the captain's cabin, and pulled himself up after it.

* * *

Down in the galley, the kitchen hand listened to the frenzied tread of innumerable feet above his head, the desperate yells of men struggling in combat and the tortured screams as wounded men fell, feeling restlessness stir within him.

He had waited long enough. This was the action he had been waiting for. Now, finally, he could leave this dull, dingy hole and join the fray, no longer loitering about below deck like an animal cowering in its burrow. Now was the time to lash out tooth and claw, at all who should unwittingly come within range of his bite.

He leapt nimbly upon the counter top and reached for a hidden ledge above a row of cupboards on the wall. From this shelf's furthest reaches he pulled a woven conical hat and a broad cutlass, its dark lacquered scabbard studded with decorative silver motifs in curious designs. Donning the hat and drawing the blade in one easy, practiced motion, he leapt down and trod purposefully up the stairs towards the deck.

As his foot found a creaking step, the cook, reclining on a barrel with his arms folded behind his head, opened one eye drowsily. Then he slumped lower on his make-shift seat, finding a comfortable spot on the rotting wood, and the eyelid drooped closed again, his restfulness undisturbed by the commotion above him.

* * *

The two men stood at the ship's starboard rail, looking out into the lee of the wind at the horizon. A tiny blur was visible out on the expanse of waves, a blur complete with spire-like masts which pierced the sky. Echoing across the distance came the dull thud of gunshot, the hubbub of clashing voices and blades. 

"What's this here then?" muttered one of the men. "Has 'e started things early? It's unlike ol' Barbeque to be impatient."

The other man did not reply immediately; instead he listened for a moment to the garbled sounds carried by the breeze, like a wolf listening for the sounds of nearby prey in the rustle of undergrowth.

"That double pistol fire," he murmured. "That's Hands, no mistakin'. That fool's set all our plans down about our ears! I told the cap'n 'e wasn't one to be relied on to speak softly, never was a one for subtle work, was Issie. The cap'n will have his throat on the choppin' block for this!"

The other man, who seemed to be his subordinate position, nodded grimly at this counsel. "So what should we do 'bout it, Anderson, sir? Ye be the one left in charge, an' if ol' Issie's campaign don't go for broke, I wouldn't want t' be left outta a piece o' the spoils. Don't ye think we been holdin' back long enough?"

The man Anderson considered this for a moment, then a sly smile spread across his broad, weather-beaten face.

"Quite right, O'Brien. Whatever the outcome, the cap'n may need our assistance, an' we were told to follow in case of any untoward happening. In any case, this may be high time to break some heads. We'll not be left behind; it's high time we caught up on some action."

O'Brien grinned, sharing his superior's murderous zeal.

"Call the men to their stations, coxswain. I wish t' be on that deck tastin' men's blood with me cutlass within the hour."

"Aye, firs' mate Anderson, sir."

O'Brien strode to the hatchway and drew a great breath; when he let it out, he bellowed fit to raise the dead.

"All hands! Up, ye cockroaches! Don' think cos the cap'n ain't here you can lie in, you lily-livered dogs! Any man seen not pullin' his weight will be seen t' be too afeared t' raid a mere trader's ship! Now after her! Our blades will nip her heels this hour!"

At these alternating insults and promises of a good fight, men poured out onto the deck and scurried eagerly to their stations. They shared many a lurid glance and nudged each other in anticipation at the prospect of a good blood-letting. All of them had some inkling of the prize that was to be won – a prize that would make them undisputed tyrants of the seas, a prize that could make even the pirate lords answerable to them…

O'Brien, satisfied that the men did their duties and that the mate capably handled the helm, went below to collect supplies of powder and ammunition for their assault on the _Lusitania_, the cutlasses being already present in a stand upon the deck. As he entered the storeroom, laying his hand on a keg, he heard a noise that aroused his suspicion. He thought at first it was the sound of the ship's timbers creaking, then started as he heard it again, louder and more guttural this time. It was unmistakably the sound of a snore.

As the ship leaned into her new course, yawing slightly towards starboard, an empty bottle rolled across the storeroom floor. O'Brien stopped it with his foot and followed its course in reverse. Peering over a pile of crates, he was amazed to see a dingy, scruffy-looking sailor sleeping soundly in the middle of a sail, his head supported by a case of rum and his hat tilted low over his mane of dreadlocks. All around him were littered crumbs, tins, ham rinds, apple cores, and, in most abundance, empty bottles. His stout boots were crossed comfortably at the ankles, resting on a nearby barrel, and with every deep, slumbering breath he took, his daintily plaited beard quivered like a pair of taut yard lines.

O'Brien stared open-mouthed at this mysterious urchin, his face reddening indignantly and his chest puffing out until he resembled a goaded fighting bantam.

_"Who the ruddy hell are you?!"_

As this mighty roar tore through the storeroom's stale air, the stowaway stirred slightly, waking reluctantly, and peered groggily about him.

"Mornin' there, mate," he slurred, favouring the outraged coxswain with a lazy, gold-mottled grin. "Care to wet your gullet before you break your fast?"

He brandished a half-emptied bottle at O'Brien temptingly. Seeing the other man's vermillion complexion and thunderous scowl, his cheery demeanour faltered slightly, and he looked a mite bit more serious

"Don't tell me you have a dislikin' for rum!"


	12. Chapter 11: An Unlikely Protector

**Chapter 11 – An Unlikely Protector**

Will rummaged through Captain Bellamy's desk. The chest was safely by his side; he shot it a glance every so often, gauging its size against possible hiding places. All the cabinets were either too obvious or too full of books and charts. He wanted a safe hiding place, one where the chest was unlikely to be discovered, but this was difficult on a ship, where the furniture was sparse and what was there was bolted to the floor…

_To the floor…_

As he pulled the bottom drawer out, Will realized that the drawer itself was only about a hand's width deep, whilst the desk itself continued down to where the desk met the floor. He tapped the wooden panelling. It sounded hollow. Pulling the drawer out entirely, he saw that the drawer compartment had no bottom, only narrow wooden runners which the drawer sat on, and when the drawer was removed, a compartment was revealed inside the foot of the desk. Will carefully lowered the chest into the space and slipped the drawer back in above it, concealing it safely inside the desk. Unless the pirates thought to search there, the desk was bolted to the floor, and thus the chest was unlikely to be discovered by accidental means.

His mission thus complete, Will wondered what to do next. He could hear the pirates thumping relentlessly on the cabin door downstairs; every vicious thud reverberated through the chamber above it, and now the sound was accompanied by the squeal of buckling brass and the splinter of wood. Should he climb back down through the window, or head out and see what he could do on deck? He had no idea what his mother had planned, only that she had endeavoured to get her two most closely-guarded items – the chest and himself – out of their room before the pirates got in. Now he had no further instructions, and wasn't sure how he could make himself useful against a dozen vicious pirates armed to the teeth – to face down even one fully-grown, murderous brigand on his own would be suicide, let alone a gang of them.

As he lingered thus in indecision, knowing the situation was serious but not knowing how to employ himself, two dual sounds distracted him, bringing him back to his immediate surroundings. One was a heavy tread on the deck outside the cabin; the other was a kind of combined rustle and squeak, rather like a startled mouse trying to hide in an empty room. This last sound came from inside the captain's quarters.

The source of the first noise soon became apparent; through the curtained French doors at the cabin's entrance he saw a stout silhouette, a sword hilt protruding from its shadowy hip – an armed man – stop at the door and taking it by the handle, rattle it violently in its frame. From this noise Will distinguished another muffled flurry of movement, this time accompanied by a feeble whimper. At the same time, he saw an edge of the fine cloth that covered the captain's table pulsating slightly, the same way a sheet moves before a sleeping man's breath, but at a much more frenzied pace. Will recognized the coat tails and lace-trimmed sleeve cuffs beneath the tablecloth's folds; Captain Bellamy was crouched underneath it.

Will stared in amazement, marvelling at the man's lack of backbone. Until a half hour ago, this was a man you should've been in charge. Now, at the appearance of a few blades and pistols, he was hiding in his quarters from his own crew when he should've been out there in the thick of it, defending his own ship.

"Cap'n!" the silhouette at the doors called out in a coarse voice. The figure beneath the table started; there was a frantic scuffle of boot soles and a dry gasp from beneath the damask. "Cap'n!" the voice said again. "It's second mate Hands here, Cap'n. There's trouble on the deck, the crew's lost their minds! Come with me, I'll help you sort it, Cap'n!"

This last comment was accompanied by a hint of a malicious snigger which was lost on neither occupant in the room. Cowardly though Bellamy was, he was no fool. Neither he nor Will were under any illusions as to who would be "sorted" if the pirate gained entry to the room. Will's blood boiled; he felt his face flush with anger. Hands was enjoying taunting the petrified man. His mother was right; these pirates were acting on pure bloodlust, savouring every kill.

Will was just wondering how the situation would pan out, considering making his presence known to Bellamy as the door shuddered again in its frame, when he heard a sharp, clear noise against the distant rumble of conflict; it was a loud, metallic-sounding click. A sound similar to that which he had heard behind his mother's dressing screen now came from beneath the tablecloth. Hands heard it as well; his silhouette froze in a second, then he threw himself sideways, beyond the doorway, as Will saw a metal barrel protrude from the tablecloth's folds.

He had to clamp his hands over his ears as the gun shots echoed around the cabin's close confines. Nearly a dozen times, the flare of lit gun powder flashed. Glass panes shattered, tatters fell off the curtains, pock marks appeared in walls. Eyes narrowed against the luminance of the shots, Will realized with a start that Bellamy wasn't aiming; he was merely firing balls into the door at a frenetic pace, shooting wildly, possibly even with his eyes closed. Hands had moved safely further down the corridor, so the door alone took the brunt of the damage. Soon the flint merely clicked on the striking pad uselessly, the silence after this diminutive sound almost as deafening as the shots had been. Bellamy had run out of ammunition.

A few seconds later Hands came lumbering back, his boots crunching on broken glass.

"That was stupid, Cap'n," he growled, all the previous humour gone from his voice. He was angry now. Not a sound came from beneath the table, but Will could see Bellamy recoiling beneath the damask, the empty pistol discarded on the floor. "Coulda killed me then, Cap'n, if I hadn't got outta the way," Hands continued. "Is that any way to treat a member of your crew? Quite a crime that, attemptin' to kill one o' yer own," – the irony of this statement sickened Will beyond words – "even if ye are the cap'n. Seein' as you got nothing more to shoot in that there pistol, what say I open this door so we can…_talk_?"

On the word 'talk', Will could see part of Hands through the broken glass and tattered curtain; his hand had reached inside his coat and now fingered what looked like the gleaming pommel of a pistol of his own. Will wasn't sure if Bellamy saw it or not, his head being concealed beneath the tablecloth; in any case, he moaned. Encouraged by the sound of a man's nerves failing, Hands rattled the door handle yet again, endeavouring to force the lock.

Whatever Bellamy's plans, or lack thereof, Will wasn't fond of the idea of waiting to be discovered and shot. Leaning around the side of the desk, he rapped softly on the floor.

Under the table, Bellamy started and toppled from his crouching position in shock. Now sprawled on the floor, he peered from under the table cloth's hem and saw Will. His skin was a sickly pale hue, his eyes limpid, seeming to sag in the wan face. This was obviously a man startled beyond his wits, a man beyond hope.

Will raised a finger to his lips and indicated the hilt of his sword. Very carefully, very steadily and slowly so that it didn't squeal on the sheath's inside, Will drew the blade, and with it in his hand, sneaking a heavy object from the desktop into his pocket, sidled round the desk towards the door. Bellamy didn't move. Will rolled his eyes at the depths of the man's cowardice, letting a child fight for him.

His heart pounded as he reached the door, standing with his back pressed against the wall beside it, blade held upright in his hand. Looking sidelong through the broken glass, he could see Hands struggling with the lock, starting to lose his patience. Any second now, he would lose him temper completely and shoot out the lock; then he'd be a goner for sure, the pistol ready for him in Hands' grasp. He had to act quickly.

He thoughtfully kept his sword concealed out of the rays of light filtering through the damaged doorway, crouching to avoid the broken panes at Hands' eye level. He knew that the light from the cabin window was too weak to show Hands his silhouette, though he could see Hands' clearly. Hands was very close to the door, fumbling with the handle. Will cautiously brought his sword back horizontally, lined it up with a broken pane just level with Hands' thigh, and paused for a moment, steeling himself. The door lock clicked just as he plunged the blade out through the jagged hole in the glass.

Hands bellowed terribly as the sword's sharp tip bit deeply into his leg. Not letting the thunderous sound faze him, Will seized the advantage of surprise and flung open the unlocked door.

Hands had stumbled back, clutching his heavily-bleeding thigh; Will couldn't tell if his sword had pierced the artery or not. As soon as his eyes fell on him, Hands' pistol arm shot up; Will had expected it and didn't hesitate, his hand going to his pocket. He hurled the missile he had with foresight picked up from Bellamy's desk; Hands received an ink bottle square in the face. It shattered on his broad forehead, blinding him with glass shards and black ink. The pistol's shot went harmlessly past Will, splintering the upper deck's rail. Ducking the pistol's path, Will rammed Hands hard in the chest; unbalanced by his wounded leg and his lack of vision, Hands tumbled straight down the stairs behind him with much bellowing and cursing, the pistol dropping from his clutches and clanking down the steps after him, adding to the man's noisy descent. Will didn't want to give him a chance to recover; he scurried down the stairs after him.

As he was halfway down, Hands, who had landed in a heap at the foot of the stairs, managed to wipe the combined blood and ink from his eyes and find his dropped pistol. His hand hit it as Will's foot hit the midway step; reacting quickly, Will hurled himself sideways over the railing as the ball hit the stair five paces above him; the step which had been level with his head. He hit the deck with his shoulder, keeping a firm grip on his sword, and rolled behind a nearby pile of crates. The muzzle of Hands' pistol poked over the topmost crate just as Will's sword blade came up; Hands swore and dropped it, blood running down his arm from a shallow cut on his wrist. Will, with no time to reflect on the blood he had drawn, raised the tip of his blade to rest before Hands' throat.

Hands seemed to slump in defeat, listing badly on his wounded leg, swaying unsteadily from the blood loss. Will could not suppress the cold-blooded elation he felt at seeing the damage he had inflicted upon his opponent. He had proved himself; he, a lad of only just over nine years, had bested a grown man, and a vicious ruffian at that. His steady gaze bore fearlessly into the defenceless Israel Hands, a small, self-satisfied smile alighting on his lips. It was a strangely relentless-looking expression on such a young, innocent face.

"Yer got me there, lad," Hands muttered with a sheepish grin. "Yer not like the other kid, I'll readily admit. Poor boy almost gave up the ghost in fear as soon as 'e saw the knife in me hand."

The pit of Will's stomach froze; his pride in his victory dissipated. So Hands really _was_ the one who had murdered Morgan. A small spectre of fear fluttered at his heart; he became more wary. The point of his blade advanced an inch closer to Hands' throat. The man froze, anxiously eyeing the length of glittering steel before him, knowing he had hit a nerve. He licked his lips and resumed more tactfully.

"But I underestimated ye, mate, yer a good 'un, for sure. Got me beat, and yer only a little lad t' boot. I don't mind admittin' you beat me square, Turner. Yer as good as an adult; and a swordsman as good as you deserves an adult's death!"

Will realized too late that Hands had been slowly groping downwards towards the waistband of his own trousers; suddenly he whipped his hand beneath his vest. Caught unawares, Will flinched instinctively at the sight of the gleaming pistol muzzle beneath it, the tip of his blade faltering.

In one swift motion, Hands drew the gun and cocked it. The blood pounded in Will's ears; he flinched, squeezing his eyes closed, shutting out the vision of approaching death before him. He knew Hands wouldn't miss this time. Not at such close range.

* * *

"_Who the hell are you?!_" Anderson demanded of the stowaway O'Brien had brought on deck, securely surrounded by a ring of stout brigands. 

"Me?" said the man genially with an excessive show of friendly charisma, though his eyes occasionally flitted to the heavily-armed men around him nervously. "I'm a fellow pirate, mate. We have the same interests at heart, the same devil-may-care attitudes to life. We're like brothers." He looked Anderson up and down. "Except I got the looks. And quite possibly the brains as well. The case remains, though, that we're both thieves and beggars til we die, you and I, members of the same brethren."

"Brethren," one of the crew members said suddenly. "I thought I recognized you, you were at the Brethren Court ten years back…you're the Pirate Lord of the Caribbean Sea, Jack Sparrow!"

A surprised – and somewhat disbelieving - murmur ran through the crowd of men. Jack grinned half-self-depreciatingly, half-smugly.

"That's _Captain_ Jack Sparrow. You've heard of me then?"

"A pirate lord," Anderson muttered thoughtfully.

He glanced at the men around him. Many of them looked back at him pleadingly, appealingly. Anderson felt their bloodthirsty zeal. He smiled cruelly, caving in to popular demand.

"Anyone here fancy a spot of treason? A royal assassination perhaps? Three in one day would be an achievement, and this way we'll at least take the credit for one of them."

"Eager to kill a pirate lord, eh?" Jack muttered as this proclamation was greeted with much sniggering and drawing of daggers.

"The concept o' so-called 'lords' is an antiquated one," Anderson muttered contemptuously, obviously relishing the grisly show that was about to take place. "There ain't no lords an' peasants among pirates; we're governed only by why we can do, and what we cain't do, an' right now, we can kill you."

Jack took this news rather matter-of-factly as the pirates advanced on him sinisterly. His eye roved over the situation for an escape; strains of gunfire coming from a far-off schooner caught his attention.

"Is that ship out there by any chance the _ Lusitania_?"

The whole crew stiffened; all of them were wondering how Jack knew the ship, and what its significance was to him. Perhaps pirate lords had a loyalty to each other?

"What's it to ye if it is?" O'Brien drawled, his tone promising punishment if Jack didn't come up with a satisfactory answer.

"Oh, nothing really," Jack muttered airily, examining his fingernails. "Raided it once. Sentimental value. Brings back so many memories to look at 'er. First raid, that was, that I went on with my father. He was always saying to me, 'Jackie me lad-' _oh my God, the cargo!_"

At this sudden mid-sentence outburst, each man turned and stared at where Jack's outstretched finger jabbed at the distant vessel, craning to see what cargo had met misfortune; if it was that prize that they so deliberately sought after. They saw nothing amiss with the _ Lusitania_, other than the discordant noise of conflict, a sound which regularly serenaded their lives, wafting from her on the breeze.

When they all turned back, Jack Sparrow had disappeared.

The deck erupted in frustrated groans and yells, every man staring around wildly, looking for the prey they had so anticipated menacing. Anderson was as much in the dark as any of them, until an ominous hiss caught his ear – the hiss of lit gunpowder.

He turned in time to see Jack Sparrow applying a lit brand to the fuse of a cannon – a cannon that had been pulled around so that it faced the ship. Not only that, but a rope had been tied to the cannon's butt end; Anderson gulped as he realized that that rope was in fact the ship's main yard line.

The fuse was long enough to allow Anderson time to shout "Hit the deck!" and throw himself down accordingly.

Jack darted out of the way as the cannon went off with a deafening boom.

Smoke filled the air and splinters flew as the ball took out the stairs to the quarter deck. The cannon, launched backwards by the recoil, hit the rail and broke through. It swung on the rope like a clumsy pendulum and crashed into the ship's keel; the wood exploded and the ship pitched violently to port-side, water surging into the bilges through the gaping hole in the _Walrus_' bow. The yard line, which was wrapped around the cannon, went taunt as it dropped into the ocean; the yard attached to the line's other end came down like a wind-tossed twig and thudded onto the deck, creating a matching break in the starboard rail and bringing the mainsail down with it. The men who narrowly avoided being crushed by the massive wooden cross-brace found themselves trapped beneath the heavy canvas that dropped like a great net onto them.

There was only one flaw in Jack's actions; with the yard stretching across the deck, he was cut off from the ship's longboats. Before he could reach them at the ship's prow, he was retrieved by two cutlass-wielding brigands and brought back to face a fuming Anderson.

Jack grinned uneasily and spread his hands before him almost apologetically.

"Parlay?"

* * *

Down in the _Walrus_' galley, Anamaria hazarded to raise her head. When the cannon had hit the ship's bow she had been thrown against the kitchen wall as the entire vessel pitched violently and forced to shelter beneath an overhanging shelf as pots hurtled from overhead storage all around her. The neatly-kept galley looked like a battle zone, utensils thrown all over the floor, cupboards that had had their doors left unbolted emptied of their contents.

"Jack Sparrow," Anamaria growled to herself, "if you are behind this I will flay your weasley hide from your flesh and throw you in the soup pot!"

* * *

Instead of the fatal pistol shot, Will heard a loud groan and a shuddering death-gasp. He felt something fall heavily at his feet with a thud. Daring to open his eyes a crack and look down, he saw Hands stretched out before him with a strange cutlass sticking out of his back. A hand deftly yanked the blade free; it belonged to the strange man from the galley, who regarded Will calmly over the dead body from beneath the brim of his conical woven hat.

Leaving his sword drawn and bloodied, the man stooped and picked up Hands' pistol. Will froze, terrified for a moment that the man intended to finish the job he had stopped the dead man from doing; however he tossed the firearm over the nearby rail.

"You alright?" he asked Will gruffly in slightly hesitant, lisping English.

Will didn't question it; he merely nodded, staring at the man with his mouth open. He was too relieved that he was alive to ponder how wrong his suspicions in the mysterious kitchen hand had been – on the contrary, he seemed to be on Will's side. Will took in the man's strange attire; beneath the collar of his tunic Will could see the high neck of a studded leather jerkin, and a plait hung down his back well past his waist. His sword bore a design that was familiar to him…the silver inlay on the scabbard was similar to that on his mother's sword, the strange straight one she carried along with the one his father had made…

Fragments of a far-fetched tale filtered back to him through his floundering thoughts…a story his mother had told him long ago, a tale he had thought to be outrageously imaginary at the time, about how she had captained a ship from the South China Sea…

As if to confirm this tale's accuracy, the foreign-looking man knelt before Will and touched his hat respectfully.

"I am Tai Huang, a loyal associate of your mother's, and your protector if you will have me, Master Turner. Where is Mistress Turner?"

Tai Huang looked expectantly at Will for an answer; Will managed to snap himself out of his shock in order to resume his concerned for his mother.

"In that cabin at the upper berths- the mutineers have almost broken in!"

Indeed, the door was straining beneath the shoulders of many a sturdy man, the wood buckling inwards. Will could see the darkness of the cabin's interior through great cracks in the flimsy portal.

"They shall wish that they had left that door closed by the time we are through with them," Tai Huang muttered with a quiet ferocity in his voice, flicking the gore from his blade with a quick downward swish of his wrist. "Master Turner, if I may instruct you, go back upstairs to the balcony outside the captain's cabin and drop any heavy object you can find on the heads of these scoundrels. Stay well back until the explosion has cleared. Now go, and stay out of harm's way!"

Too bewildered to think to do anything else but obey, Will scurried back up the stairs, wondering just what explosion Tai Huang meant.

Captain Bellamy started as Will burst back into the cabin; Will was thankful that the man hadn't had any more shot for his pistol tucked away. Will seized a paper weight in either hand from a nearby shelf and turned back towards the door.

"Hey, wait with those! Those are mementos!" Bellamy tried to forestall him. Will ignored him completely.

He looked out over the rail onto the deck below. Tai Huang was taking care of a few stray brigands with startling efficiency, his great curved broadsword mowing like a reaper's scythe through the ruffians. He looked up at Will and caught his eye for a moment; then he pulled something from his tunic and struck a flint, holding it in his teeth to light it. Will recognized it from books he had read; it was a series of red canisters containing gun powder tied together. Fire crackers.

Tai Huang hurled them into the midst of the brigands who were just succeeding in breaking down the cabin door, not two metres below where Will stood. He scurried back hurriedly, knowing the effect they would have, pushing a rather bewildered Bellamy, who was still protesting the sacrifice of his paper weights, before him.

The fire crackers went off not in one great explosion, but in a series of bright flares of sparks and high-pitched whistles that were far more prolonged and disconcerting than a single grenade. The brigands tripped over each other, trying to escape the constant noise and spray of sparks, floundering in the thick smoke and shower of red paper that fluttered over everything like confetti, the last remnants of the spent canisters. It was a very impressive sight; despite his fear for their lives, Will was fascinated by the showy spectacle.

Finally the explosions died away, leaving only the dry, hacking coughs of the men still enveloped in heavy smoke. Then Will heard a loud creak, followed by a keen slashing sound and a man's pain-filled cry. The deck erupted into confused conflict. Peeping through the door, Will saw Tai Huang launch himself into the fray, towards where Will could see two swords glimmering through the smoke screen. Elizabeth had joined the battle.

Will hurried back to retrieve his paper weights and help her from above. He held one paper weight at arm's length over the rail; picking out a man at the edge of the conflict, he aimed the missile over his head and let it go. The paper weight smashed over the man's scalp; he fell and lay motionless, trampled by his comrades.

Elizabeth saw the pirate fall, glanced up, and gave Will a battle-zealous grin. Will grinned back, proud to be contributing. Then Elizabeth turned her attention to a brigand who rushed her from the left. She caught his sword between her two blades, the razor tip of her sabre coming up to slice across his chin.

Mesmerised by his own mother's incredible prowess, Will tore his riveted gaze from her and hurried back into the cabin in search of more heavy objects. Bellamy, who had by now realized what he was doing, hesitated for a moment, then took up a bookend in one hand, a heavy pewter mug in the other, and followed him.

It was a battle unlike any Will could ever have imagined. He had to keep a close eye on Bellamy, making sure he didn't accidentally drop something on Tai Huang or his mother. At one point the captain made to drop his empty pistol over the rail; Will caught his wrist before he could let it go.

"Keep that. It might come in handy later."

When he wasn't taking care of his own task or Bellamy, Will watched Tai Huang and his mother from the corner of his eye. They were an awesome sight, both masters of swordsmanship. Tai Huang added bare-handed martial arts to his repertoire, easily catching the wrist of a man who rushed him a dagger and flipping him over his hip, the loud crack as the man's arm broke cracking loudly through the noise-laden air before he hit the ground with a tortured yell. Will winced as he watched these brutal moves, recognizing some of the techniques; they were similar to some of the unarmed combat his mother had taught him, like the leg sweep he had used on both Morgan and Hands. She must have learnt it from her Singaporean crew.

Suddenly Will saw something out of the corner of his eye. A new man was entering the fray, a heavy metal rod hanging from his massive fist. Will gulped; it was Jack Rackham, the ship's gunner, a rather slow-witted mountain of a man almost twice as tall as anyone else on deck and three times as broad. He was heading right towards where Elizabeth stood. Distracted by other assailants, she hadn't noticed the giant's approach.

"Mother!" Will yelled out, trying to warn her, but she couldn't hear him over the shouts and the clash of blades around her. However it did draw Rackham's attention. Will froze for a moment as the man's beady eyes watched him maliciously; then in one smooth movement he brought his arm back and threw the ink well in his hand at the huge man. It bounced harmlessly off his shoulder. In return, Rackham plucked an empty pistol from the ground; it hurtled at Will's head. He ducked just in time; it hit the rail and bounced off, falling back down to the deck below. It landed just near Elizabeth; she turned in time to see Rackham bearing down on her, his club raised, chortling slyly through his teeth.

Before he could strike, he bellowed suddenly and turned halfway round. A series of shallow gashes ran parallel across his arm. Tai Huang was at his elbow, swinging three metal caltrops suspended on strings; they made a deadly sound as they razed through the air, their metal spikes, usually thrown on the ground for men to tread upon, just as deadly when airborne.

Tai Huang swung the caltrops at Rackham's head, just as Elizabeth raised both her swords. Rackham saw them both; he ducked and spun. The caltrops passed through thin air, whilst Elizabeth, cornered against the cabin's wall and unable to retreat in time, was struck on the temple by the tip of Rackham's rod. With a slight moan, she collapsed, unconscious.

"Mother!" Will shrieked, clawing desperately at the rail, wishing he were able to do something other than watch helplessly from above. Elizabeth wasn't moving. Tai Huang, a dark, almost murderous expression on his face, was sprinting towards Rackham with his sword held high.

Sparks danced as the cutlass grated on the metal rod. Rackham reversed his swing and caught Tai Huang unprepared with a backhanded swipe; the man was pitched sideways by the blow and hit the mast with a sickening whud, falling in a heap at its base. He tried to rise, but groaned and clutched his side where he had struck the mast, his face deathly pale and his eyes narrowed in pain.

With none left to oppose him, Rackham turned back to Elizabeth's slumped form and raised his club.

At that moment, Will dropped down on him from above, clutching onto one of his thickset shoulders with one hand whilst driving his sword downwards with the other.

Rackham bellowed like a maddened bull and whirled around. The sword had not gone into the pirate's left shoulder very deeply; the hilt was flung from Will's hand and it flew away from him as he spun along with the huge man's frenzied movements. He had to grip on to Rackham with all his might as the giant staggered beneath him, throwing him about. He was safely out of range of the metal club, Rackham being unable to bludgeon Will without beating himself over the head in the process.

After a terrifying ride on Rackham's shoulder, Will felt a heavy hand close on the back of his tunic. Rackham had dropped his weapon and plucked Will up by the scruff of his neck as though he were a mere kitten. Will tried to go for his pistol, but it was swatted from his grasp, his hand numb from the giant's heavy blow to his hand.

He glared back as Rackham held him up before him and grinned down wickedly at him, both maddened by his wounded shoulder and smug in his advantageous position, dwarfing the tiny lad. Will, though he struggled desperately at the hand that held him aloft, could not reach Rackham, who held him safely at arm's length. He was being carried easily and steadily across the deck; Will managed to turn his head in the direction he was being borne and realized he was seeing what Morgan must have seen that first time they met. The railing was advancing towards him at an alarming rate. His struggles redoubled themselves, but there was little he could do. He felt Rackham raise him, poised to fling him headlong overboard into the ocean.

"Time to drown, ye lil' bilge rat," Rackham grunted; Will swung in his grasp, then felt a horrible feeling of weightlessness as he arced through the air, freed from Rackham's clutches and far beyond the Lusitania's rail, gravity pulling him down towards the turbulent waves below.

Just as he was preparing himself for the plunge into the icy depths, something hit him out of nowhere; he caught sight of black cloth flapping across his vision like great wings, and a firm hand gripped his shoulder, an arm wrapped around him, pulling him back away from the ocean's beckoning depths.


	13. Chapter 12: Face to Face

**Chapter 12 – Face to Face**

Will instinctively clutched onto the man who had snapped him up in mid air, not knowing or caring who he was or how he had so suddenly appeared out of nowhere. He soon found himself facing Rackham again, the man who held him standing easily balanced on the ship's rail, holding him easily under one arm whilst his other hand clutched the ship's rigging. Will looked up at his rescuer.

The man wore a serious expression on his brow, his dark eyes steely, almost chilling; Will shuddered inwardly, though that gaze was not directed at him. The man's flowing bandanna and dark coat fluttered around him in the breeze. A sword was buckled at his hip, its fine silver hilt criss-crossed with nicks and sabre cuts. Something was carved into the pommel of the hilt, but he couldn't make it out…

Rackham's expression had clouded in a moment from triumphant to wary; he growled at the newcomer like a cornered bulldog. The man gazed back at him calmly, seeming to have forgotten Will's presence. Will watched him, fascinated; the man's eyes languidly sized up the massive gunner, then seemed to widen slightly – in surprise, in recognition, it was impossible to tell – as they alighted on something they saw past Rackham's shoulder…

In a split second, so it seemed to Will, Rackham produced a knife and lunged forward. Will gasped in surprise, unable to get his feet beneath him in time, as the man half-dropped, half-shoved him down without warning; he tumbled to the deck, looking up in time to see Rackham plunge the dagger into the stranger's chest.

For a moment that passed like a lifetime before Will's frightened eyes, they remained locked together, chest to chest. Then Will saw a drop of blood fall between them; the stranger worked his right hand slightly and Rackham toppled over, the silvery sword sliding free from his corpse as it went down. The man didn't so much as sway where he remained standing on the rail, though the handle of the knife was embedded up to the hilt in his chest.

Will stared. He could see the edges of a long, thin scar snaking out on either side of the knife that pierced the man's chest now. A scar that looked like it had healed years ago, positioned right over the man's heart…or rather, the place where the man's heart should've been…

Will felt suddenly breathless as a new, absurdly impossible notion struck him. His own heart seemed to skip a beat as the possibility occurred to him, then it resumed at double the pace, thundering wildly in his chest. He stared up at the black-clad man in awe and wonderment, one thought repeating itself over and over in his mind…

_Surely it was impossible…but perhaps…could it be…?_

As soon as they noticed the newcomer and saw the seemingly-unconquerable Rackham fall easily before him, every mutineer stopped in his tracks, frozen in fear. Then slowly, one by one, they began to throw down their weapons and back away, their terrified gaze not leaving the mysterious man, as though they were afraid he would slaughter them in a second if they so much as blinked.

The man approached them, casually reaching up and pulling the knife from his chest as he did so. Every man winced audibly as they watched the blade slide out; Will gulped, his knees feeling weak as water beneath him, knowing better than to try to stand. The man was fine; the wound should've killed him, but he was fine, he showed no signs of pain, no discomfort, nothing. He stopped before the mutineers, an air of mastery emanating from him, an aura that intimidated even the boldest man into fearful submission. The scar across his chest and the blood-stained blade in his hand spoke louder than any verbal threats he could've issued to them.

There was a heavy pant at the man's elbow. Both he and Will looked round for its source – Tai Huang had hobbled across the deck, leaning on Rackham's discarded club as though it were a crutch. He was still obviously in pain, but held himself upright admirably, with only an occasional grimace.

"Easy," the man said to him in a manner of familiarity which made Will wonder all the more. "Your ribs are most likely broken; you'll pierce a lung trying to move around like that."

"I'm not as weak as that," Tai Huang grunted, his words slightly slurred as his forehead creased, a sign of his internal struggle with the pain he was in. "Let me take care of them; I will throw them in the brig for you. I will be fine, I know they won't give me any trouble. If they try anything, their crime will be written upon their soul until their dying days, and then they know who will pass final judgement on them before they move on to the world beyond this. Heaven help them if they die at sea!"

With this cryptic remark, giving the man a knowing, respectful nod, a tight-lipped attempt at a smile on his lips, Tai Huang began herding the terror-subdued mutineers towards the companionway with his cutlass, his other hand keeping his make-shift crutch propped beneath him as he hobbled out of sight.

The stranger remained on deck, watching him go, then turned and looked straight at Elizabeth, who was still lying senseless upon the deck. His gaze held what Will thought was a suspicious amount of unfounded curiosity. He took a step towards her; Will instantaneously hurled himself up onto his feet, his preoccupations and fatigues forgotten. Reclaiming his sword from where it had fallen from his grasp whilst he had wrestled with Rackham, he swiftly and deliberately imposed himself between the man and his mother. He held the blade before him in a guard position, his face determinedly set, warning the man of the consequences he could expect if he attempted any harm towards them. His eyes met the man's own unflinchingly with a hostile scowl; neither knew it, but this expression bore a striking resemblance to the one that had been on the stranger's face when he had stared Rackham down.

The man stopped a few paces from Will and knelt down, looking at Will along his own considerably lower eye level. Will forced himself to continue to hold eye contact with that intense, searching gaze which seemed to divulge his entire history in a glance.

"Who might you be to stand in my way, lad?" the man asked. Will was surprised that the man's voice didn't sound half as stern as it had been when he had addressed Tai Huang; thinking he was being patronising because he was only a child, Will raised his chin with dignity and brandished his sword warningly.

"I'm Will Turner; my family are pirate lords, master swordsmen, and the most fearsome buccaneers to roam the seas. I am very much one of the family, they have taught me well, so if you take a step closer, you'd better have a taste for cold steel."

Hoping these words would caution the one he addressed them to, Will nevertheless expected some challenge at this, a coarse jest or sardonic jibe thrown at him in answer. After all the fierce talk he had heard that day, this lack of a hostile response disconcerted him more than even the worst swearing, threats or insults could have.

"Will Turner," the man finally repeated. A tiny smile actually crept across his face; it changed it dramatically. The steely light in the eyes softened, and his voice was likewise contemplative as he regarded Will with a look that surprised the lad out of his hostility. It was a look he knew well; it was beyond a doubt so very, very similar to the look he had so often seen on his mother's face when she was thinking of _him_…

"Funny that," the man said with that same half-sad, half-smiling look on his face. "Will Turner is my name as well."

He tilted his undrawn sword, hanging from his belt, so that Will could see what was carved on the pommel of the hilt. ._J.W - no, it wasn't a 'J', it was a backwards, curly 'T'- .T.W - when pressed into warm sealing wax it would read W.T.-_

Will lowered his weapon slowly, his sword arm seemingly giving up the fight on its own accord. He had suspected it, had hoped for it, but it still seemed impossible. With all the time that he had been absent, he had seemed such a distant, almost immaterial entity, so far from anything real that it seemed impossible that he could be close, let alone right here right now…it wasn't some trick, was it, an impostor, another bid to take the heart? The heart…that scar…was it proof? He had seen him heal from a mortal wound, seen it with his own eyes, but was it truly…was it even really possible…could this really be…?

His left hand went out hesitantly, his instincts telling him to make sure; then suddenly overcome by an onset of timidity, he faltered in mid-act. The man suddenly caught Will's outstretched hand in his own and finished what Will had been too scared to do, pressing the lad's palm against his own bare chest.

Will gasped, startled by the sudden physical contact. He could feel the scar beneath his fingers, a ridge of disfigured skin raised up against the hard muscle beneath. Beyond that, the man's body felt strangely still; he should've been able to feel a heartbeat, even a faint glimmer of a pulse, but there was nothing at all. There was no concealment, no room for tricks about it; there was just no heartbeat, there was _nothing there_…

Will pulled his hand away as though he had been burnt. He looked up into the man's face, truly seeing him now that he knew he was not a threat, trying to take in everything he saw. So many feelings had come over him, combining to become something beyond anything he had ever felt before.

The man's eyes were truly kind now as he looked at the boy, correctly interpreting his thoughts; he knew the lad realized it, knew he understood, and his own feelings were something akin to what the boy felt. It was a strange mix of the unspeakable joy in this moment, and ten years' worth of pent-up sadness; of surprise, delight, and an overshadowing sorrow all combined into one strange, all-encompassing emotion.

Will Turner and Will Turner, father and son, finally stood face to face for the first time.

* * *

Luckily, the _ Lusitania_'s course had brought them within twenty nautical miles of land. Working quickly, the men had managed to patch the breach in the hull with a tar-soaked sail. The helmsman very carefully steered the _Walrus_ into a riptide that let her cruise along without the aid of the mainsail, running her aground upon the shore of a desert island. A party had been sent out, armed with boarding axes, to retrieve timber for repairs. However the ship would no doubt be forced to stay beached here until she had been completely fixed. The cross brace would be hard enough to replace, but even worse, the fractured hull needed to be made completely watertight before she could be deemed sea-worthy again. It was a big job that would have taken even a skilled carpenter at least a week to carry out.

Jack stood before first mate Anderson again, this time in the captain's quarters. His hands had been safely bound with rope, and to make doubly, or rather triply, sure that he got up to no more mischief, a pirate armed with a cutlass stood on either side of him, ready to skewer him if he made the slightest false move. Already they were becoming impatient with their duties.

"Can't we just kill 'im now?" one of them whined at Anderson, rather like a child denied a sweet by his mother. "He's done enough damage already, I think he's long overstayed his welcome here alive."

The man on the other side of Jack nodded in agreement, brandishing his sword hopefully.

"But I invoked the right of parlay," Jack protested. "I can't be touched until I've negotiated with your captain."

"Our cap'n is preoccupied at the moment," Anderson muttered in a surly tone, stony faced, doing his best to contain his anger. "He's got better things to do, who knows when he'll be able to talk to you. He's not even on this ship right now. I'm as good as cap'n here at the moment, and as far as I'm concerned there's nothin' to negotiate. When the cap'n finds out what you done to the _Walrus_ he'll be mad as I am now, so I sees no reason not to kill you now an' save 'im the trouble."

Jack fluttered anxiously as the two men raised their cutlasses eagerly. "But technically you're not the actually captain, mate, you're just, well, the mate. You kill me, you'll be breaking the Pirate Code, and you know well who's the Keeper of the Code."

Jack and Anderson shared a look. Despite his placid features, Anderson did indeed know who the Keeper of the Code was, just what his reputation was like, and who he was related to…he certainly didn't need a war with the Brethren Court now, before their prospects had been secured…just look how the East Indian Trade Company had fared, even with Jones _and_ an armada…

"Besides," Jack continued, his gaze uncharacteristically shrewd as he eyed the uncertain mate, "you need me. I'm leverage. You'll lose days here while repairs are done, the Lusitania will be long gone and you won't know where she's going." Jack had astutely noted the chart on the wall, quite clearly mapping two courses one just ahead of the other. The lines trailed off without intersecting; the final destination of the _ Lusitania_ was unknown. "I'm a Pirate Lord, and a close confidante of a certain other Pirate Lord. If you keep me comfortably, I can guide you to where you need to go - the same place she needs to go - before the end of the fortnight."

Anderson looked at Jack sharply. "You know what we're after then, do ye?"

Jack waved his hands in as airy a gesture as he could manage with them bound together. "Following the Turners, what else could it be? I mean sure, Elizabeth's still a rather attractive woman, if you don't know the dastardly nature beneath them angelic looks; but she's getting on in years and she has a kid in tow. She's not valuable enough on her own to be pursuing halfway across the Caribbean. Not unless you're a certain _stupid_ person, anyway. No, what you want is what she's got with her, in that sea chest. I should know, I helped put it in there; if that man hadn't been stabbed by Davy Jones right when he was, if Jones had paused just two seconds longer, it would've been my heart you'd be after right now. As it was, I put that knife into the current captain's hand and guided it downwards."

There was a long pause after this confession. The pirates looked at each other, not knowing what to say, whilst Jack casually glanced at the untidy surrounds of the captain's quarters. Obviously – hard to believe though it was – Jack's bumbling appearance was a façade, concealing a highly efficient, calculating mind. He was a man of much the same goals as these men, the same as their captain; he had had that immortality, that power, within his grasp once, ten years ago.

"So you know where they're headed?" Anderson asked finally, carefully considering all he was learning. "You know how we can catch them up again along their course?"

Jack pulled a face. "Well I don't know exactly. I hardly followed them ashore ten years ago, I have no interest in that kind of business, they had complete privacy in that respect…even so, there are a lot of islands around that area, it's mighty hard to recall which is the right one exactly…"

Anderson took a step forward and grabbed Jack securely by his collar, his rank breath wafting over Jack's face. "If you lead us on a wild Sparrow chase round the islands, I see no reason why I shouldn't leave you safely on some god-forsaken spit o' land with a pistol an' a single shot. If ye still want a parlay by the time we came back, I'm sure our cap'n would gladly hold converse with yer bleached bones."

Jack swallowed. The prospect of being marooned again hardly appealed to him – especially without rum, and no guarantee of sea turtles passing by.

"I assure you, I have no undying loyalty to the Turners. Two out of three of 'em have betrayed me before; I'd rather lose me loyalty and remain undying, thanks."

"But how do I know ye won't be mistaken?" Anderson muttered. "After all, as ye said, there's a lot o' islands round here, an' ye don't exactly know which one it is."

Jack made a movement toward something on his own belt; the two men with cutlasses advanced on him menacingly, but he merely held up a beat-up-looking compass that had been dangling from his waist.

"What you want most is what's on that ship, and if you don't get what you want, I'll get what I don't want, which means what I most want is what you want most. Savvy?"

Anderson, thoroughly confused by this repetitive speech, merely looked at him with a bewildered expression on his face, nodding uncertainly.

Jack grinned, giving the compass an emphatic shake. "I'd say then that that's enough incentive for me to navigate accurately. What say you put me up onboard for a while, until I take you where you need to go? Do we have an accord?" He held out his hands, the one that didn't hold the compass with palm outstretched expectantly.

Anderson considered him for a moment, then seeing no other option, took his hand and shook it, the other and the compass moving along with it. "We'll give you our guest quarters then, Captain Sparrow," he said grimly, a note of remaining reluctance in his voice. "Consider your parlay to be in effect."

* * *

Tai Huang's ribs were indeed broken. The good Dr Trevellyan, the _ Lusitania_'s resident ship's surgeon, found him on his way back from the brig and hustled him into his makeshift clinic, a rather spacious cabin with a second bed for patients curtained off from his own living space. Trevellyan had managed to defend this room with his own brace of pistols, protecting his medical supplies from buccaneers who might have tried to horde them for their own purposes; whilst no corpses littered the corridor, there was spent shot aplenty. Obviously the mutineers had decided to give up their cause before they actually needed the remedies they had sought.

Tai Huang was deftly bound up in bandages and ordered to remain on his back until his broken bones knitted; he was given the spare bed in Trevellyan's room, his own hammock below deck being quite out of the question in his current state. Directed to go above to Mistress Turner's aid, Trevellyan left Tai Huang and set off in search of his next patient.

He met her halfway; as Trevellyan emerged on deck he saw that the unconscious woman was being borne towards him by a man who was strange to him. The doctor was reaching for his pistol, which was loaded in anticipation of meeting mutineers who remained at large, when one of the cabin boys scampered forward; Trevellyan recognized him and knew him to be a good lad.

"It's alright, Doctor, he's with us! He's my father!"

Will relished saying those words after all this time. He looked up at the man beside him; he grinned back at him, obviously appreciating the words as well, heard in relation to himself for the first time. Nevertheless, it had given Will a strange thrill, an astonishment combined with a few stubbornly remaining uncertainties, to watch this man take his own mother up in his arms so tenderly, with such emotion and love in his eye. In Elizabeth's direct presence he seemed a completely different man, a sensitive and caring one, a doting husband, quite different to the almost inhumanly cold creature who had slain Rackham without so much as blinking. He cradled Elizabeth's inert form protectively against him, eyeing the doctor with a simple, appealing trust in his eyes. Trevellyan swiftly evaluated the situation, his eyes darting from the man to the lad; deciding the stranger wasn't dangerous and concerned for the woman's welfare, he nodded and ushered them into his room.

Captain Turner laid Elizabeth gently on the doctor's own bed as though she were made of porcelain. The doctor set to work, examining the shallow cut on her forehead, checking her pulse, raising her eyelids. No one spoke. Tai Huang watched silently from where he was sprawled on the nearby bed, his own discomfort forgotten. Will glanced across at his father. His jaw was set, his eyes clouded, the tension obvious in his expression. He noticed Will looking at him and gave him a small smile; a semi-successful attempt at a reassuring look. It comforted Will to know that his father was there with him and felt the same, sharing his anxiety. Though neither spoke, there was a sense of companionability between them as they stood side by side.

At last Dr Trevellyan stepped back, giving a reassuring smile to the room's expectant occupants. "It's just a mild head trauma; in medical terms it's commonly known as a concussion. She's undergone physical and mental hardships these last few hours, so I'll give her a sedative to keep her resting quietly for a while. The best thing to do is let her sleep and wake in her own time to minimise the effects of the hit to her head. She may be a bit dizzy and disorientated for the next few days, and we'll need to keep an eye on her, but otherwise she'll be fine, no lasting damage."

The whole room relaxed at this statement. Tai Huang lay back on his pillow with a deep sigh, his duty to his captain temporarily suspended. Will heaved a deep breath, then swayed and almost fell, suddenly light-headed. A strong arm caught him. A sudden dull roaring had filled his ears and his vision was blurry; he had to half-lean and be half-lifted by his father in order to stay upright.

"Come, lad, I think you've had enough excitement for one morning," said the doctor's kindly voice; he felt himself guided to a chair and handed a glass of pungent-smelling amber liquid. He spluttered slightly as he obediently sipped the brandy, the drink burning the back of his throat, but his head felt clearer for it.

"Rest, you," the doctor told him, spreading a thin mattress on the floor for him beside his mother's bed. "You've had quite a shock from this turn of events, you'll fall ill if you don't take it easy."

"But I want to help run the ship," Will murmured wearily, sinking rather gladly onto the mattress. "We have fewer men now, they might need my help…and _the chest_…" He looked at his father meaningfully.

He was touched by the concern he saw in the eyes of the man he had only met for the first time that day. "Rest," he told the lad gently. "We can talk of such things later."

"You won't leave?"

"No, I'll stay here for a while; I'm not finished with those mutineers yet. You sleep for as long as you need, I'll come and see you later when you feel better."

With a final nod to Dr Trevellyan, Captain Turner stalked out of the cabin.

Will looked up at his mother sleeping peacefully on the bed beside him and settled himself drowsily. It felt so right, to be here beside one parent while the other was off protecting them. At last the family was all together. All these years he and his mother had been looking out for one another; now with his mother was injured and he himself relied upon to protect her, alone and scared, it was a huge relief to have some he could trust watching over them. _His own father_. His father was there to protect him. After all this time, he was here with them just when they needed him most…

"Lad," said doctor Trevellyan's voice; he lay a blanket over Will, speaking to him in a low voice as he did so. Will could just make out the doctor's glimmering eye glasses from underneath his drooping eyelids; he had reached his limit, he was exhausted and dropping swiftly off to sleep.

"Can that man be trusted?" Trevellyan's voice continued urgently. "Is he really your father?"

Will smiled. "Yes," he said, feeling happiness swell in his breast as he said it, speaking as much to himself as to the doctor. "Yes, he's my father. Don't worry, he'll protect us, nothing can hurt us. He'll take care of us…my father…he's…"

The poor lad was soundly asleep before he could finish the sentence, completely tired out from all the terrors he had faced and all the dangers he had escaped that eventful morning. It was a sound, untroubled sleep, made all the more so by the reassuring presence of his and his mother's protector on the deck above.

* * *

Will Snr stood by the rail, watching the morning sun's rays glimmer on the sea's spray. Seldom during the last ten years had he trod the boards of a ship other than the _Dutchman_; twice in the space of two weeks was astounding. More astounding, however, were the woman and child sleeping beneath these very boards, on this very same ship…

She was still so beautiful. A decade of stress and loneliness had done little to dull her beauty; every line in her face that hadn't been there before gave her stunning features a hint of tragedy that cut his very soul to the quick to see. She had suffered during these long years he knew, never more so than now, threatened because of the burden he had given her to bear…

And _him_…

His son was beyond any expectation he had had, anything he had dared to imagine during his lonely nights ensconced in the locker and torturous days exiled from the land. Seeing his son made Will so proud. He was strong, he had all her spirit…Will could see the resemblance between him and her, he had her face, her wit, her attitude…the way he had held that sword, his stance, that tilt of the blade, he recognized it as the same stance he himself had taught her so long ago…

_He had seen them._ Less than ten years since that day, that day that so often seemed more than a lifetime ago, he had seen them. They were there with him, on this ship. It seemed unbelievable, nearly impossible. The captain's soul, which had been gradually embittered by the strain of long, lonely years, was lifted for the first time in years with hope, with genuine happiness…

_But it's all an illusion, isn't it?_ the cynical, though realistic, voice in his mind reminded him. _At sunset, the _Dutchman_ will demand your presence. And after that, after that long-awaited, so eagerly anticipated 'one day', what do you have to look forward to? Another lonely decade without them. _

The last one had been near-unbearable. He had so very little to look forward to. _One day._ The next 'one day', his son would be becoming a man, getting on without him, and her beauty, perhaps, would have finally started to fade with advancing years…they would leave him behind, painstakingly slowly but surely, he would be shut out of their lives until one day, those lives would be over, and he would be left drifting on his own, decade after decade, with nought but memories to console him.

It was as though a maelstrom had opened beneath him. Eternity rose before him like an insurmountable wave. Eventually, one or both of them would be gone; then that wave would wash the last of his human hopes away, turning him into a monster like his predecessor, cursed to roam the seas forever undying, all compassion forgotten. Finally, all those years that had been robbed from him, the loss of all the love he could have had with his family, would make the death that had so nearly claimed him then would eventually seem merciful compared to this life-in-death…

He heard a footstep behind him. The few remaining sailors who were not mutineers and had not been slain by mutineers had gathered nervously on the deck behind him, watching him uncertainly. It hurt Will to see the fear in their eyes; his body was immortal, his soul all the more vulnerable. He tried to ignore the sensation of their wary eyes upon him, tried to banish the despondent thoughts from his head. He was here for his family now; he had best make himself as useful as possible.

He addressed the man closest to him, who seemed the boldest of the lot.

"How many spare sails do you have on board?"


	14. Chapter 13: Calmer Waters

**Chapter 13 – Calmer Waters**

Will woke reluctantly, uncharacteristically for him. His body felt like a dead weight; he wanted nothing more than to curl up and go back to sleep. But the morning sunlight was glimmering against his stubbornly-shut eyelids – he had to get up. He'd be jibed for slacking if he wasn't on deck soon. He snuggled deeper into his bedding, surprised by how solid his hammock felt. As he did so, he felt a painful twinge in his shoulder. His eyes snapped open.

And it all came flooding back.

He was on a lumpy mattress in Dr Trevellyan's room. The doctor himself was snoring softly in a chair by his desk, his spectacles drooping almost off the tip of his nose, his long fingers steepled on his chest.

Will rubbed his shoulder gingerly and it throbbed again. Working back the neck of his tunic, he saw a large, angry-looking bruise there. From where he had hit the deck, leaping the rail to dodge Israel Hands' pistol shot.

Will slumped back on his makeshift bed with a heavy sigh. It all felt seemed like something that had happened to someone else - someone else had dived over that railing, and he had merely been watching - yet at the same time, it seemed more vivid than anything else he had ever experienced. Moments jumped out at him in tandem, as real as life in his mind's eye. The flash of a pistol muzzle. Rackham's savage, snarling face. Morgan lying motionless beside the tar bucket… Morgan, who wouldn't be waiting for him on deck when he got up…

Will remembered just who would be waiting for him on deck and felt his heart do a somersault in his chest. That black bandanna floating on the breeze; the thunk of heavy boots landing on the ship's rail; glinting silver initials engraved on a sword hilt…all of it combined in his mind to become the image of his father, an image that had remained indistinct throughout his life and was now brought into sharp focus, like a blur on the horizon suddenly examined through a spyglass. He had met him. He was real. His father, _his father was right here…_

At least, Will hoped he was. He looked at the sun's rays filtering through the cabin windows, trying to gauge the time of day. The doctor held a portside berth, if they were still following their plotted course they would be heading north-west…judging by the sun's angle, it was mid-afternoon. Had he truly waited for Will to wake up like he had said he would?

Suddenly more than awake, Will pushed himself upright and glanced around the room.

His mother was still asleep on the bed beside him, her hair spread on the pillow around her, her breathing soft and even. The cut on her forehead had been cleaned up by the doctor, it didn't look too severe. But she looked so vulnerable lying so still like that. Will suppressed the vague feeling of alarm he felt rising within him. _She's just sleeping,_ he reassured himself. The doctor had said he was going to give her a sedative, and he trusted the doctor.

He pushed the covers back and got gingerly to his feet. Now that the excited thrill in his blood had subsided, he felt each minor ache and pain he had picked up in the fight more keenly. Moving somewhat stiffly, he began to creep out of the room, being careful not to wake the sleepers surrounding him. A flash of movement made his heart jump; on his bed in the corner, Tai Huang had opened one eye. He gave Will an almost undistinguishable movement of his head. Will noticed that his hand hung over the side of the bed, poised over the sword on the floor there. Will returned the nod and went out, reassured that Tai Huang could defend the room.

Instead of taking the companionway directly to the upper decks, he went through the galley to visit the cook. Will had rather a liking for the man – he enjoyed his exuberant chatter, and Morgan particularly had considered him a good friend. He feared what had become of the cripple in the mutiny's chaos. Thankfully he found the cook very much alive and well, and just as talkative.

"Blimey, such a commotion as was goin' on aloft," he uttered as Will grabbed a handful of hardtack for his long-delayed breakfast. "Couldn't make head nor tail o' it from down here, it was best to keep out o' it from the sounds o' it. I thought me very ceiling was gonna fall down bout me ears. It sounded like a war goin' on up there; some o' the crew even say it was close to bein' a full-scale mutiny."

"It _was_ a full-scale mutiny," Will muttered darkly, the lump in his throat having nothing to do with the dryness of the hardtack. "I was in the thick of it; I saw it all. There was well over ten of them; they killed anyone who resisted them. Tom Hunter, Alan Joyce, Tom Redruth, Abraham Gray… Morgan… they were all killed. By their own crewmates, they were killed." His voice had dropped to merely a whisper; the hardtack in his hand perhaps softened and became more palatable with the addition of his tears.

"Eh there, lad," murmured the cook, hobbling over on his crutch "Eh there, lad, you thank yer lucky stars yer alive. An' them black-souled scum; they better thank their stars I wasn't there with me cleaver. If I'd known what was comin' t' pass right over me head, I'd 'ave gone up there an' battered their skulls in with me own crutch."

He waved the crutch for emphasis, swaying on his one leg as he did so. The sight drew a small, teary smile from Will. He imagined the cook was capable of a fair bit of damage, bearing down on mutineers with his heavy crutch in one hand, a frying pan in the other, and his great meat cleaver between his teeth.

"A mutiny… by the powers…" the cook continued incredulously, lumbering round the galley. "How did the idea get in their heads? Who'd be so cowardly, so desperate an' power-hungry an' despicable as to try that? On a merchant ship? We ain't carryin' nothin' o' great importance, nothin' to be stabbin' backs for."

Will looked at some stray potato peelings on the floor, not deigning to answer. He knew full well why the mutiny had taken place, and though he longed to confide in the kindly old cook, too many people had already been killed for that secret. If it weren't for them, himself and his mother, if they hadn't been on this ship, all of those men would still be alive… No, that was no way to think about this sort of business, the business of murderers and thieves. They had been as careful as they could have been as it was, there was little else they could've done to prevent it… the puzzle remained how the crew had known of the chest in the first place, neither he nor his mother had breathed a word of it to anyone, and the fighting had definitely been centred around their cabin…

"It's a sorry business, lad," the cook interrupted Will's chain of thought. "I got on friendly with many o' the lads who died, even some o' them blasted mutineers; I thought everyone here was a good mate. Shows a man's heart ain't always worn on his sleeve."

Will nodded, the cook's words reminding him where he should be heading.

"I should head aloft, sir, I'll be wanted on deck."

"Alright then, mate, you come talk to me whenever you want. Well-meanin', upright folk like ourselves need t' stick together."

Will clambered up the stairs towards the deck. The cook's good-natured eyes followed his lithe form upwards; then they clouded apprehensively. A storm was brewing around them; though the waters they were in were currently calm, they might merely be drifting in the storm's eye, about to pass into squalls again.

* * *

Will paused just below the top step of the companionway and took a deep breath. He didn't know what to expect. What if he was there? What would he say to him? What if he was gone?...

The deck looked near deserted, a shameful parody of its former bustle. So this is all that's left, Will thought despondently. Half a dozen men were half-heartedly going about the ship's duties. Some of them sported bandages, slings and stitches – the reason behind Dr Trevellyan's napping became evident, the physician had been hard at work that morning. There was no sign of a black bandanna anywhere. Will's heart sank, but accepted it readily enough. After all, they'd only met once… he couldn't really expect him to want to hang about…

He heard a squawk to his right. Swoop was perched on a crate, preening his feathers. He looked at Will for a moment, his beady eye a glimmering spot in his midnight-black feathers. Then he shook himself and took off, fluttering onto the cross brace of the aft mast with what sounded like an impatient warble. Will watched the men flinch, their eyes following the bird nervously; reading these unspoken directions, he followed Swoop towards the stern.

He turned the side of the forecastle and there he was. He had pushed some crates aside to clear a space and was crouched on the deck, the hem of his black coat fluttering at his heels, fiddling with something at his feet. He looked so incongruous there in the glaring afternoon brightness, his dark attire seeming to drink in the sun's rays. Will felt slightly afraid, as though he was meeting him for the first time again. Something made him approach quietly, inconspicuously, as though he didn't want to be noticed. Captain Turner heard his footsteps and turned. Will started, trying to think of something to say; then he fell silent as his father moved and the things at his feet were no longer obscured behind him.

A number of long parcels were bundled up in canvas, tightly bound with rope. There was a narrow bit in that lumpy shape that looked like it was a neck with a head attached; a spot of blood on that one; one that was far smaller than the others…

Will swallowed hard, trying to tell his stomach to go back where it belonged. Captain Turner gave him a pitying look as he stood and stepped back to survey his own handiwork. The corpses of the mutiny's casualties had been carefully bound up in spare sails as though in funeral shrouds.

"They need to be laid to rest properly," he said solemnly, his every glance gauging Will's reaction. "They were sailors, good men; they died in a horrible way, in the worst possible betrayal. The only thing that can be done for them now is to give them a proper farewell, lay them to rest in the embrace of the ocean."

Will said nothing. He stepped closer slowly, his eyes resting all the while on that bundle that was smaller than the others by at least two feet, a human form just discernible beneath the canvas' heavy folds. It didn't seem like there was a real person in there; and in a way there wasn't. It was a lifeless thing, bearing no resemblance to the boy he had known. The boy who had laughed as spray whipped in his face, shouting with glee as the ship pitched over a particularly steep wave. Will nodded slowly.

"He'd want that." His voice held the merest tremor. "He loved the sea more than anything else. He'd want that."

As though he had been waiting for this approval, his father nodded and went to the rail. A cannon had been moved aside from its port to make way for the spare anchor. It wasn't attached to the ship; he had bound the corpses together in a row, like packhorses in a caravan, with the anchor at one end.

"Calypso, take these loyal seafarers into your protection, and be sure that your gentle currents guide them beyond this world."

Thus proclaiming, he nudged the anchor overboard with the toe of his boot. It plummeted downwards with a splash, the rope following it; it unfurled, became taut, then pulled the first body down after it. One by one they disappeared. Capt Turner came and stood by Will's side as they watched them slip overboard. His hand rested on the boy's shoulder; just once he felt him tense as that smaller bundle slid over the deck's edge and disappeared from sight. He knew his son was being brave in the presence of himself and the crew, and gave his shoulder a comforting squeeze. At last the final corpse was gone. The white canvases could be seen floating as ghostly shapes in the ship's wake. Every man on deck removed his hat and stood at attention, watching his comrades make their descent to the gravesites awaiting them on the ocean floor. The men respected the stranger, even as they feared him, for honouring their mates with these last rites. Will's mouth felt dry as he watched those flickering white shapes disappear beneath the water's shifting surface.

"Where will they go now? What happens to them, after…?" He swallowed, not daring to look at the man beside him, who did not reply. Perhaps it was too personal a question…after all, he had died once, and even now, if he indeed still lived, it was a life spent among the dead…

Captain Turner considered this childish query carefully, turning it over in his mind, trying to find the best way to answer it. He thought of the Locker in its perpetual twilight…the souls gliding through the water like ghostly mermen…floating passively on rippling dark tides…looking face down into the water's depths, which stirred slightly beneath him, something moving in the shadows of the waves…a face appearing, a face framed by heavy locks of hair like tendrils of seaweed, the delicate patterns painted on her face curving as she smiled, a mocking, triumphant look, grinning back at him as he lay suspended in the undulating swells, helpless before this darkness, this cobalt blue abyss…

_"I told you I saw a touch of destiny in you, Will Turner…"_

Just when young Will thought he wasn't going to answer, he spoke.

"They'll go to Davy Jones' Locker. The Locker, it's like boundless ocean as far as the eye can see, horizons stretching in every direction beyond the limitations of the real world. It's lit by ghostly lights within the waves, glimmering in the moonlight like fireflies; the ship, the Flying Dutchman, seems to be sailing in the sky, surrounded by stars."

There was a touch of wonder in his voice as he spoke, his eyes far away, picturing before him that same image he saw each night, sombre and almost spectral in its strange beauty. Young Will was awed by the vividness of the description. It sounded like every sailor's romantic notion of the sea; an untamed frontier, stunning in its brooding temperament, seemingly stretching to eternity, carrying one to wonders as yet unknown. Towards that elusive horizon…

"The _Flying Dutchman_ is their last berth," his father continued. "She's an antiquated Dutch _fluyt_, dignified in her dusty, rot-eaten old elegance. Her black sails flutter before the moon like gathering storm clouds. They work on her planks just as they did in life, but no matter how hard they drive the capstan they never tire, the lines never tangle, no one ever slips in the rigging, no one is caught shirking their duty. Everyone does their best work, proves their capability at their craft one last time. Then when all is done, when the _Dutchman_ has been tended to, those who are worthy rise up from her deck, and they float towards the moon like thistledown, towards that great orb hanging in the sky; and they disappear into its heavenly light, and move beyond the Locker, on to the next world. Beyond that state of transition lies the last eternal resting place, known only to those who were worthy in life and are now conquered by _death_." He seemed to lay a subtle stress on these last few words; Will came out of his entrancement. The place of beauty in his mind became a darker, more foreboding place; his soul shivered at the revelation. This was the kind of thing mere mortals only speculated upon - he was hearing of it first hand.

"And what of the others, the ones who aren't worthy? Where will the dead mutineers go?"

Capt Turner smiled grimly. "That is even more mysterious…it is Calypso, the spirit of the sea, who decides their fate, and none are able to tell what punishment she has lying in wait, all are swallowed up by that second sea, the Locker's depths, from which none resurface a second time…she's both the sailor's muse, and his final, harshest punisher. As of the moment, our dead mutineers were thrown overboard with far less ceremony than their poor victims. Those who live are in the brig, and had best live out the rest of their lives in a blameless fashion if they hope to somehow redeem themselves before that final judgement comes for them."

"Will you do anything with them now?"

"No. Most of them are spineless cowards; they didn't really mean what they did. They were put up to it by men who laid images of greed in their minds. They can stay where they are until you reach the next port; then they can be left there, where they can't hurt anyone else on this ship. After that, the choice is theirs, what they make of themselves."

Will pondered this sentence. In a way, it was right. He thought he would've wanted these men, these murderers, to share the fate of their victims. But remembering the frightened looks on their faces when his father had boarded the ship, Will realized these men were very different from Rackham and Hands. They weren't murderers, merely opportunists, and when thwarted, they were as meek as any other man. They didn't deserve death.

"Mind you, you'll reach your destination before the next port."

Will turned to face him sharply at that. His father smiled at him knowingly. That 'One Day'. The look in his eye told Will just how he had been longing for that day. Will imagined that black bandanna tossed in the air like the Dutchman's sails, billowing against the moon, alone in the Locker's gloom. It was a sad image, one he knew his father had re-enacted every night for the last ten years. How much it must mean to him to have this early meeting, to be standing here with them in his presence…how much Will knew it meant to himself…

"How did you know we needed you?"

"Swoop told me. He was delivering my next letter; he came back without having delivered it. I knew something was wrong."

"Even with the mutiny and all, I'm still glad I got to meet you," Will went on shyly. "It's been so long already, I've always wanted to meet you…"

He stopped. He knew no more was necessary. The look on his father's face rewarded him. It was a look of contentment, of thankfulness; almost happiness. He smiled, and as he did there was less sadness in it, he looked truly happy, just for a moment.

"Me too, son… me too."

He gently drew his arm around Will's shoulder; Will leaned against him, savouring the solidity of his presence, this phantom that had haunted his years finally made material. They stood for a moment, watching the afternoon sun lancing down in glaring beams upon the water's foam-tossed surface. Then Will turned and looked up at him.

"I'll show you where I hid it."

* * *

Will felt both pride and nervousness as he led the way up the stairs, feeling his father's eyes prickling on his back. He knew this was a heavy responsibility he bore, and he wouldn't feel at ease until he saw the chest before him. They entered Bellamy's cabin without so much as a knock; the captain, who had been in the middle of checking the security of his valuables, gasped and hurriedly stuffed numerous items, including a pouch of gold pieces, a leather wallet of papers, and a handsome hat adorned with ostrich plumes, into the otherwise-empty drinks cabinet.

_Foolish,_ Will thought. _That's the first place a pirate will look._

He strode across the room to the desk, Capt Turner giving the dumbstruck Bellamy a polite nod. Bellamy dithered a moment before the cabinet, gazed apprehensively at Capt Turner; he decided his valuables were best left where they were, and prudently abandoned his own quarters, leaving Will and his father in privacy. The drawer felt very heavy in his nervous hands as he drew it out. He threw it down with a thunk and reached into the cavity it had left; much to his relief, his fingertips touched a wooden surface. He traced the heart carved on its lid to reassure himself, then reached in and lifted it out. Capt Turner's eyes followed the chest's every movement as Will laid it down gingerly. He crouched beside Will and laid his hand on its side. He nodded affirmative as he felt a pulse reverberating through the wood. He was checking the chest for his own pulse. Will felt a cold thrill go through him at the thought.

Capt Turner looked at the innocent-seeming sea chest with a mixture of contempt and reverence. After all, this unseeming object both quite literally held his life in its confines, and kept him away from those he loved. A shadow passed over his face; the brow creased into harsh lines, his eyes hardened, lost some of their lustre.

_As long as she has this,_ he thought, _she can't forget you. She'll continue to pine for you, be reminded of you, so long as this lingers in her presence. She'll never let it go, nor will she let you go, and it hurts her to hold on. Would it be so bad to let a knife plunge into it, just like I did to my predecessor, allow myself to drift away again, put us both out of our miseries? Or perhaps toss it overboard, where none can reach it, and let her forget me without having to watch over it, live our separate lives in peace…perhaps she would be happier that way…_

His hand tightened around one of the chest's handles. He willed himself to act whilst he had the courage.

Then he felt his son's eyes watching him quietly, expectantly, waiting for his approval. He had gone to such pains to hide it, he had risked his life and others had lost theirs for the sake of this thing and its contents. He couldn't do away with it now, before his son's very eyes. He owed him more thanks than that.

"You did well," he said, swallowing his bitterness and laying a hand on his young son's shoulder, hoping he wouldn't feel the insincerity in his touch. "Without you, who knows what would've happened to it? You may very well have saved my life." The lad's beaming face did a bit to heal his wounded soul. The weight of the last ten years slid away and the next seemed lighter to bear before that smile.

But when that smile was gone…?

The light was fading in the west, giving the sky a russet tone. The night was approaching, the Locker beginning to beckon him. He could feel it in his bones, he was compelled to go, despite his desperate longing to stay. He had to leave, and it would be hard, now that they had finally met. Now that he was finally so close to her again, for the first time in almost ten years…

He lifted the chest. "What do you say we take this back to your mother's room?"

"Ok!"

Young Will scrambled to his feet and darted off ahead. Capt Turner followed slower, with his own heavy heart in his hands.

He couldn't do it. Not now, he couldn't. But perhaps when he saw it again, in a week's time…

* * *

He placed the chest at the foot of her bed, looking over it at her all the while. She looked so peaceful and innocent, like a sleeping child, her lashes delicately brushing her cheek. He came around the side of the bed with an air of hushed awe in his movements. Reverently, almost hesitantly, he gently kissed her cheek. He whispered her name into her hair. He would commit this small act of selfishness whilst she slept. Part of him willed her to wake, wanted her to acknowledge his presence, to see her smile…another far more persistent voice told him that it would only be torture, the less contact they had would spare them haunting memories over the next ten years.

_It's not so simple to forget, is it? No, but it might ease the pain - her pain - that little bit more…_

He turned away from her slowly, his gaze wistfully lingering on her despite himself, and looked towards the door. His son stood firmly between him and the portal, chin stubbornly upturned and eyes pleading. Capt Turner sighed and knelt before him, taking him firmly by both shoulders.

"I have to leave. My duties in the Locker compel me to go…as much as I want to stay, I can't."

"But we need you." His small, tremulous voice cut him to the quick. "I need you; mother needs you. We miss you, and you keep us safe."

"You and your mother can handle yourselves, I know you can, and if you're ever in serious trouble, send word to me through Swoop. You can summon him at a whistle and he is never too far away." Young Will continued to look at him expectantly. He sighed more deeply.

"You need to understand. My soul isn't my own. As much as I would like to give it to you and your mother, I can't, it's bound to the Locker. If I stay with you now, eventually I'll need to go back. Even after our One Day, I'll still have to go back for another ten years. As much as I am so happy to have finally met you, it is perhaps better if we don't meet too often. It's no good if we spend ten years thinking of each other, with only one day's respite. You and your mother need to forget me, get on with your lives without me. I know you're strong, you'll be a man in another ten years or so. I know you'll help your mother to be happy and help her forget. I don't want to be a distraction in your lives, holding you back. It's far fairer on both of you if I don't get in contact with you too often." Young Will bowed his head. He knew he understood.

"What about you?" Those large eyes looked at him with a sudden, strangely piercing gaze. "You're all alone down there for all those years, it's not fair on you either."

Capt Turner swallowed hard. The gods knew he wanted more than anything to give in to this strong-willed young lad, this lad trying so hard to be brave yet at the same time pleading with him. He almost didn't want to meet those eyes.

"It's not fair to make me worry about you two while I'm away. I'll be far happier knowing that you and your mother are leading a good life, getting on without me. I know you'll help her out, make sure she's happy. Try to help her forget." His voice sounded dull and toneless in his own ears. Young Will's determined look wavered; then he threw his arms around his father's neck.

"I don't want to forget you. Not now that I've finally met you. You're so brave, so strong, so much more amazing than I ever imagined…I don't want to forget you, I want to be just like you…"

In the chair in the corner, Dr Trevellyan's head had dropped lower, obscuring his eyes. Tai Huang was facing the wall. Both at least exuded the appearance of slumber, although now the doctor sniffed quietly and Tai Huang's head turned a bit more away from the rest of the room.

"You will be," Capt turner whispered, disgusted with his own weakness as his voice cracked. "I know you can be. I'll still write occasionally, I want to hear all about how you're getting on. But you need to live your own life as well, become your own person. I know you'll be great; you're a lot like your mother." He eased his grip on the lad's shoulders and he obediently stepped back, looking up at him tearily. "This isn't goodbye just yet. I'll see you again in a week's time. Take care of that chest for me until then."

Leaving his emotion-laden heart behind, Capt Turner left the room without a backward glance, trying to ignore the tears prickling his own eyes.

* * *

_She was standing on an endless sandy shore that stretched like a desert in every direction, with no end in sight. Standing beside her, nesting between two sand dunes as though suspended in the act of cresting a wave, a ship was poised. Its rigging stretched like a rib cage into the sky, masts nearly completely barren of their sparse sails, like a leafless tree standing before a cold autumn sun. She knew that form, that ornamental carving, those dark sails. It was a ship she would never have imagined to be earth-bound. Its former prowess over the waves made its helplessness so much more pitiful. She walked around it curiously, marvelling at it. She was approaching its bow. Something was there, a shadowy figurehead…she peered up at it, perplexed…it was different to the one she remembered…_

Elizabeth…

_Her name had been called softly, unmistakably…but there was no one here…yet she heard a furtive creaking nearby, like old boards warping in the sunlight…_

_The painted eyes of the masthead snapped open. Beneath the decaying wood and flaking paint, the lichens and barnacles, she recognized in that carved statue the form of her husband. The words she had heard through terror-stricken tears floated back to her out of the past…_

Part of the ship, part of the crew…

_She stood on tip-toe, reaching up towards him. She was almost level with him. Something touched her cheek; it moved about his shoulder. Instead of hair, dozens of tentacles spilled out from beneath his bandanna. Fighting revulsion, she stayed close to him. His lips worked laboriously, his eyes were blank and trance-like._

_"Leave…" His words seemed to reach her from underwater, strangely muffled though he was there less than two feet above her. "The Locker wants me to stay…"_

_"No," she whispered, straining upward, trying to make him see her. "No, Will…"_

_"My soul isn't my own…" He didn't seem to see her, though she still clung onto him, right before his sightless eyes. His voice was toneless and halting. "I would…give it to you…but it's bound to the Locker…I'll…have to go back for another ten years…it's no good if we spend ten years thinking of each other… forget me, get on with your life…"_

_"I don't want to forget…" She said it into his face, wishing he would acknowledge her, plucking at the collar of his coat. "I don't want to forget, I love you and always have…I didn't realize it in time before, I won't deny it now…I won't have any peace until you're back beside me again…"_

_"Be happy, lead a good life…" He didn't seem to hear her at all. "Forget, and be happy… I'll be far happier knowing that you…are leading a good life…forget, and be happy…" He was moving away from her, backwards into the ship. Just as his father had done all those years ago in the brig, he was fading into it, becoming part of it._

"No!"

_She grasped desperately after him, trying to hang on to him, but the brittle wood crumbled beneath her grasp and melted away. She lunged after him, but he was gone, his voice taunting her as his face disappeared last of all into the wood grain._

_"Forget, be happy…"_

_She sank onto the sand and sobbed …she could feel the warm tears running down her face…she heard another furtive sound of wood creaking, this time not as muffled, as though the ship was declaring its victory…forlornly she whispered his name…_

Will…

* * *

Will didn't have the heart to watch him leave. He stayed in the sick room, watching his mother sleep. She hadn't woken in time to see him. As though knowing of her loss even in sleep, she murmured softly, shifting restlessly beneath the bedclothes.

_It's not fair,_ he thought as he looked at her, all the longing and pain from the last ten years seemingly written on her face as she tossed fretful. _It's just not fair…_

Something moving out of the corner of his eye, distracting him. Through the doctor's generously-sized window, open to let in beneficial gusts of ocean air, he saw dark sails gliding towards the horizon. He left the bed and rushed to the window pane. There, he could see a bandanna billowing in the ship's swift after draft, there beside the helmsman. How could he have boarded her so quickly? He wasn't looking back at their ship, he was staring out into the wind. A bit of Will's heart hardened.

_Why did it have to be like this? Why couldn't he stay, just for a little while? Why wouldn't he so much as look back at them? Why?_

There was a low moan near him. He turned abruptly from the window. Elizabeth stirred slightly, her gestures becoming more agitated. Her eyelids flickered; her lips uttered a drowsy syllable which wasn't immediately discernable…

"Will…"

Her eyes opened. She looked at him, seemed to come to herself, remembering. "Will…" she repeated it again, her gaze gliding past him, searching though he stood right before her. She knew.

He took her arm and pulled her as swiftly and roughly as he dared to the window. Her eyes focused on the sight and widened in desperation. In an instant she pushed the glass outwards and flung her head and shoulders out of the portal.

"Will!"

Her shrill cry travelled like a sea mew's call across the expanse of water. Though he was already progressing into the distance, they could see his shoulders stiffen at the sound; he turned…

"Will!" She reached for him as though she could pull him back to her across the waves to her. His eyes gazed directly at her, their intensity felt even through the damp ocean air between them. His shoulders slumped; he gestured with one hand to the setting sun. A sob escaped her lips. She knew he had waited as long as he could have. He had to go. That sad smile was exchanged between them, misty-eyed on both accounts; he kissed his hand to her. Her smile broadened, held a spark of joy for a fleeting moment; she returned the gesture. Then he turned away from her once more.

The dying sunlight seemed to draw the ship towards it, there was no way it could depart that fast by natural means. The Dutchman wavered in the last afternoon sun; her form became obscured by lancing rays…

The light faded steadily, then a sudden, startling flash split the sky, turning it a sickly hue. When it dissipated, the ship was gone, as though swallowed by the sea. The shadows were rapidly dropping over the gleaming crests of the waves; a chill wind buffeted them even in the window's shelter.

He had kept a grasp on her elbow as she had strained through the portal; now she fell back and nearly collapsed against him, half-swooning, clutching him tightly to her. He felt each great, wretched sob as they passed through her, and each one shook his heart. He looked over her shoulder, eyes resting on that chest.

_Why…?_


	15. Chapter 14: The Persistance of Memory

**Chapter 14 – The Persistence of Memory**

The ship's deck was rather subdued. The men went about their tasks as faultlessly as ever; nevertheless, a definite sense of restraint was felt by everyone aboard. They knew very well where they were, why they were here, who was master of this vessel and this place, this whole other realm. And one glance had been enough to tell them that their captain was in a very black mood indeed. No where else was the tension more palpable than directly before the door to the captain's quarters. The portal was given a wide berth by all, and rightly so, it seemed; out of the relatively hushed tones of the capstan creaking and the sails flapping, a sudden cry tore through the still air:

"Bah, I'll not obey you! You ain't got no hold over me, and I ain't in the habit o' answerin' t' a scrawny, weak-chinned, knock-kneed, spineless little whelp like you!"

There was a deathly silence, then…

John Rackham burst through the cabin door, falling heavily on the planks, looking slightly stunned. Israel Hands bumbled nervously after him, making unintelligible squawks like a startled crow. The captain bore down closely on his heels, a frightening calm in his tread, contrasting sharply with the murderous intent writ in his expression. The entire crew unconsciously drew back a pace. No man could mistake the pure hatred flying off him in waves, directed at these two men; if they felt it, they covered their fear succinctly, the one by being inconspicuous, the other by blustering.

"Feh!" Rackham spat, raising himself to his feet with bull-like tenacity. "I have me faith in a mightier cap'n than th' likes o' you, an' he'll cap'n this 'ere very vessel one day, mark me words; an' when 'e does, why should I fear death an' this gloomy place? He'll rule it all, manipulate the seven seas, an' when he does 'e won't do it without 'is right-hand man t' break some heads! When he takes over, he'll decide who lives an' who doesn't, includin' you, so why should I fear you, boy?"

Hands added his sneer to his crew mate's bold words; his snivelling laugh faltered under the captain's withering gaze. The captain spoke; his voice was full of menace held in check, like a dagger that could in a second be drawn from its sheath. Every man who heard it detected its keen edge.

"I gave you both a chance to redeem yourselves. You could've aided me, let me know what this entire horrid spectacle was about rather than having me discover it for myself. Perhaps then I might have almost forgotten the harm you _nearly did my family._" These last words pierced the air like pistol shot; even Rackham's defiant look froze temporarily. "I'm being more than merciful, giving you every chance to save yourselves. I'll ask only once more. Why did you attack the crew of the _Lusitania_? Who is your captain?"

A few seconds ticked by. Nothing stirred but the eternal breeze in the sails. Then:

"I've cocked me guns an' I'll fire as I've loaded 'em. I ain't a coward as would give in to the like o' you, and I ain't givin' yer squat." So said Rackham, feet firmly planted and chest puffed out, eyeing the captain imperiously from his vantage point. A murmur ran through the crew. The condemned proclaiming his own sentence, it seemed to them. The captain gave Rackham a look of utmost loathing. Then he faced Hands interrogatively. The weasley man flinched, then recovered his boldness.

"The only answer I can give you is this." With a mock grandiose flourish, he produced a paper from within his threadbare jacket. The entire crew performed a simultaneous intake of breath. Though not all of them had seen it in life, there was no mistaking the legendary communiqué of the pirate's death promise, the Black Spot. All eyes watched the captain warily, wondering how he would react.

He remained motionless for a few moments, gazing at the paper pensively. Hands' smile broadened. Rackham chortled snidely. The crew fluttered nervously, seeing the captain's gaze harden. He took the paper with a slight snatch that temporarily startled Hands, then turned about face and walked away. The crew murmured slightly in disappointment. Hands' smile turned into a triumphant leer; Rackham, immeasurably emboldened, made his confidence vocal.

"Even the mighty marauder of Davy Jones' Locker, Cap'n Will Turner, fears a spot of ink on a piece o' paper!" He began to laugh throatily as the captain, stony faced and silent, ascended to the quarter deck and took over command of the helm from the mate. With a sudden abrupt movement, he jerked the wheel around.

The ship pitched violently. The crew bawled fitfully and caught hold of whatever was closest, trying to keep their balance; the boom swung over the deck like a pendulum and neatly swept Hands and Rackham over the rail. Though they were merely the spirits of deceased men, they fell heavily into the water with all the weight of two proportionate sacks of potatoes. Hands spluttered discontentedly, his head breaking the surface with a loud rasp; Rackham became more abusive as he tread the inky water, his massive frame bobbing on the gentle current.

"Yer bilge rat, yer worthless maggot, yer low-down cockroach! This yer idea o' retribution, droppin' a man in the drink? Pah! Fer shame! A real man ne'er feared a bit o' wat- ARGH!"

Before Rackham could finish his barrage he noticed that the water around him had begun to froth and boil; without warning, like a savage beast snapping up its prey, a pitch-coloured wave closed over him, whisking him from view with a final half-smothered bellow. Only a ripple marked his passage. Left alone in the water, Hands yelped pitifully. He turned his gaze frantically upon the captain; he was met with a remorseless, vengeful stare. It was too late. The ocean's jaws closed on him from behind; with a strangled cry he disappeared beneath the water's surface, swallowed by the sinister black depths in an instant. The water churned slightly where they had been; then it settled to a disconcerting calm. All who witnessed it shivered. The ocean was undoubtedly alive, and hungry for prey. What awaited the doomed men below, only Calypso knew.

Will stood at the rail, staring at the spot where the two mutineers had disappeared. If he felt any satisfaction from watching the Locker assert itself upon his foes, he didn't show it. Bootstrap hazarded a sidelong glance at him. Many men had had their souls claimed by the sea as punishment for wrongs they had committed in life, but only once before had Will hauled someone aboard to confront them, only to similarly throw them overboard to be devoured by the sea; only one other person had invoked this much ire…

* * *

_"I was just doing what was best for myself and the company I represented! You're a simple man, barely educated, a blacksmith, a labourer; you don't understand the ways of politics, the ways of businessmen. I just did what any good businessman would do, if you hadn't meddled in the affairs of astute men I would've won!"_

_"But the fact remains that you have lost, Beckett. I may not be a gentleman but I am not an imbecile. I understand perfectly what is incomprehensible to you – the value of a human life. Every man here on the Dutchman is here directly or indirectly because of your actions. They were not your currency, to be used for your deals, your conquests. And now you are just like them - dead. And I'm the one in the position of power, I decide your fate. In your view, I have won. But even if I've won, I'm hardly happy to be here, shackled to this ship, far from what I love most. And I'm here only because you dragged me and my fiancé into your 'business' – it's all because of you. You brought this upon us, and this final punishment upon yourself."_

_Will had turned from the ocean as Beckett's cries had been literally drowned out by the Locker's deadly embrace, and had turned to face the crew, all of whom had returned his gaze solemnly, their oppressor dealt with, awaiting their captain's orders upon this, his very first turn at the helm…_

* * *

"Captain Will Turner," Bootstrap heard Will mutter to himself. "Not Captain Jones, Captain _Turner_… someone knows who I am, past the folklore of old… which means someone could know my story, and how to repeat what I did to get here…" The Black Spot was crumpled in his tightly-curled fist. Rackham had most likely had one on him as well. The rest of this crew, if there were indeed more of them, probably had them upon their persons, an extra jibe to be delivered to the Locker from this unseen opponent if the opportunity arose with their deaths… Hands and Rackham had had complete faith in their captain, whoever he was, and had refused to divulge his identity… whoever he was, he was forging a campaign against the _Dutchman's_ currant captain, that much was clear… _another businessman perhaps…_

Will broke off this train of thought and walked down amongst the crew. He drew near a young boy who was tarring the rail and looked up hesitantly from his task at the captain's approach.

"You were friends with young Master Will Turner aboard the _Lusitania_, weren't you?"

"Yessir, I was, sir, he was a good mate o' mine."

Will knelt beside the boy, a softer look in his eye; a look of pity. "Thank you for being his friend; he really appreciated your company. He misses you a lot, you know."

The boy, Morgan, nodded, a look of utmost awe on his young, flushed face. "I heard what that cur said before, sir... Captain Turner... You're his father, sir, aren't you?"

Will could not suppress a smile. "Yes I am."

Morgan paused, then continued in a breathless rush. "I didn't know… you're captain of the… this ship… and he never once said anything 'bout it… what he said was that his father was the best swordsman ever, or so he said his mother told him…" He looked up at Will with something resembling fear-tinged adoration.

Will chuckled, his own face flushing with pleasure and pride. "Hardly so… if I were, I might not be stuck down here… but it was kind of them to say so."

A bell tolled somewhere on deck. The crew's duties were complete. The time was drawing near; the moon seemed to glow a bit brighter. Its magnetism could be felt by the entire crew, drawing them towards it.

Will rested his hand on the lad's shoulder. "I'm sorry this had to happen to you so early in life, but rest in peace. He wants you to, and his thoughts are with you."

Morgan nodded. "Thank you, sir; I'll miss him too. He's a good 'un, sir, I can tell you; a better mate I never had. Me last days were well spent, an' I reckon I can be pretty well at peace now."

Will's hand passed through him as though he were made of smoke as he rose up before him, following the others into that celestial light, their portal to all that lay beyond these last remnants of existence. Will watched the boy drift away, his own soul feeling as heavy as lead.

_That could've been my son… it could've been Elizabeth… those devils, they could've…_

Without a word or another glance at the flight of the souls, he strode across the deck and disappeared into the captain's quarters. Bootstrap left him well alone. He had seen the look on his son's face; a fierce scowled had furrowed his brow, yet his lips had been pursed and his jaw rigidly set, as though he were fighting back a softer emotion with great effort. It may have been a trick of the light, but his eyes had seemed overly bright. Too much had happened today. He was best left alone with his thoughts and emotions.

* * *

"And then I saw Tai Huang leaping over the crowd as though their heads were mere stepping stones in a stream, crossing the marketplace and knocking down half a dozen corsairs with the flat of his sabre as he went. And when he reached me he had the nerve to say, 'Women do far too much shopping! Come back to the hideout immediately!' As though he had conveniently forgotten who was his captain and king, bossing me around like that, and he actually thought that that sewer that he misleadingly referred to as a hideout was worth returning to!" 

"Eh, it wasn't bad for a hole underneath a bath house!" Tai Hung pointed out.

"It was a still a hole beneath a bath house though," Elizabeth objected, an impish smile on her lips.

They were sitting by Tai Huang's bedside, keeping him company and swapping old tales. The doctor had gallantly offered Elizabeth and Will his own bed, taking up residence in their dishevelled cabin, with its broken bed and door hanging off its hinges, for the night. A pull curtain mounted on a rail would give them privacy from Tai Huang's stretcher, to which he was confined for the next few weeks whilst his broken ribs healed. Elizabeth had been given the doctor's permission to rise and move about, as long as she didn't over-exert herself; now that the narcotic had worn off, there seemed to be no lasting effects from the concussion and she was her old self again, making sharp-witted jests and teasing Tai Huang about their younger days, leaning forward eagerly in her seat as she spoke.

"I never knew you went to Singapore, Mother," Will said as he chuckled over the grown-ups' banter.

"Oh yes, I lived there for almost a year; Tai Huang found us a house and everything, though it was into the sewer for the first few days. This was just after you were born so you don't remember. I had originally intended to stay with some relatives at Bristol, but after you were born on the way there and I had a bit of unpleasantness with some pirates, I decided to change ships at the next port and I took you to Singapore. I knew my faithful crew there would keep us safe until you were a bit older, then it would be easier for me to both manage the inn and look after you. I spent those months training mostly, learning all kinds of useful things. Where else would I learn how to hit a man's exact pressure point and take him down in one blow? It's so subtle a move, yet so simple, only an Oriental could devise it." Tai Huang grinned broadly at that and inclined his head modestly. Elizabeth favoured him with a knowing smile. "After we returned to Port Royal he disbanded the crew – they were better off pursuing their own exploits, since I was hardly going to sea again anytime soon– and he found a job close to the Benbow at an armoury. He is an expert with gun powder, the good Englishmen rather appreciated his talent. He created some rather spectacular grenades, hundreds of fugitive pirates from Tortuga hazarded to show their faces in Port Royal just to purchase his goods. Then, when I organized passage aboard this ship, he quickly convinced the newly-appointed quartermaster to take him on as an apprentice. The poor cook is a rather simple man, he'd never held an officially appointed berth before, and he was easily impressed by Tai Huang's skill with a knife; and so Tai Huang has been secretly watching our backs since the very beginning of this voyage."

"And to think I was so sure he was our enemy," said Will, looking sheepish.

"He very well could've been!" Elizabeth said with a chuckle. "Just as well you were suspicious, he certainly wasn't quite what he seemed! I knew perfectly well who he was, but it was safer not to tell you and risk giving away his true intentions to anyone else."

"I wouldn't have given him away!" Will protested indignantly. He had more sense than that.

"If you had known he was a friend, you might have forgotten and given him away to our enemies without realizing it. It was better for you to be distrustful and a bit hostile towards him."

"I didn't take any of it personally," Tai Huang assured the sulky-looking lad with a wry grin. "I'm used to looking suspicious and distrustful; I was born looking like this. Besides, any hostility you directed at me was probably deserved; when I first met your father I was under orders to torture him, and did so. A little bit."

"Really?!" Will uttered with surprised. His father had been in Singapore too?

"This was some time before what your mother spoke of. We had caught him robbing a temple belonging to my previous captain's uncle. He very nearly got clear away, too, with the charts showing the way to… to Davy Jones' Locker…"

Tai Huang fell silent as he noticed Elizabeth's mood had plummeted at the very mention of the place that held her husband captive. Feeling somewhat guilty for having had some time with his father while she had not, Will went to her side.

"He was amazing today, Mother," he said, trying to comfort her. "He took a sword through the chest like it was nothing, and-" this seemed to have the opposite effect, so he continued on hastily "-and he was really strong, and brave and kind, just like you said. He's amazing."

"I know he is." Elizabeth's tone was very subdued, the cracks in her voice just barely kept under control, but not entirely concealed. She put an arm around him. "I know he is. He always was."

Will remembered his father's words from that afternoon… _Help her to be happy, help her forget…_

His heart was sore. He looked at the chest at the foot of their bed. _They're all she has now,_ he thought as he looked at it, as though he were mentally addressing his father through it. _Memories are all she has now. How can you expect her to willingly lose them as well?_

* * *

'Bootstrap' Bill was left all alone on the deck. The helm could be left to its own devices; the Locker was so vast and featureless it hardly mattered where they drifted. He went to the rail, looked all about furtively, checked that the door to the captain's quarters was shut, then leant over and peered at the gently undulating black waves below him. 

"Eleanor," he called softly. "Eleanor,"

A few moments later, a soft glow suffused the water directly below him and a white shape drifted into view from beneath the shadow of the ship's hull. It was a woman, a cloud of fair hair drifting wraith-like around her head, her skirts like lacy sea foam bobbing around her, enhancing her ethereal appearance. Her face was extremely pale, even for a spirit, the water tinging her sallow cheeks blue; her hands were deathly thin as she clasped them before her breast. She looked up at Bootstrap with large, luminous eyes as blue as a cornflower. Her lips were slightly parted; now they moved, though no sound reached him, her voice swallowed up by the sea that held her. Again her lips uttered it, a single, soundless syllable.

"My beautiful Ellie," Bootstrap whispered, all the wistfulness in her face and his own evident in his voice, as though in her silence he spoke for both of them.

"She certainly looks beautiful."

Bootstrap whirled around at this unexpected voice at his elbow. He braced himself between his son and the rail defensively, as though trying to conceal what lay beyond it, but Will smiled at him knowingly.

"You've no secret to keep; I've known that you've been seeing her for almost ten years now. Will you let me look at her? I haven't seen her properly since almost eighteen years years ago."

Bootstrap looked at him mutely, somewhat guiltily, as though he had coveted this gorgeous sight for himself; then he obediently moved to one side, letting Will stand beside him, leaning his elbows on the rail as he contemplated the figure below him.

"She looks so different to how she looked last I saw of her… when… when she was alive, that is…" Bootstrap muttered haltingly after a few minutes' silence. "She aged o' course, I knew she would, but she's so drawn and thin, and her eyes… they're haunting. I almost can't bear to look at 'em."

"And yet I was forced to look at them all through my childhood." Though Will's voice was soft and even, Bootstrap flinched. "I would watch her staring out to sea, staring at the horizon. No matter how hard she looked, she never found what she sought. It didn't stop her from looking, though. Every day, every spare moment, she would turn and look out to sea. 'Keep a weather eye on the horizon, Will,' she would say to me. 'One day, your father's ship will appear there, bringing him home to us.'"

Will's voice held a quiet note of melancholic nostalgia. There was no accusation in it, yet Bootstrap had bowed his head so low that his forehead rested in his hands, which he had spread, palms upturned, on the rail before him.

"And then she became ill. Still she would lay in her bed, staring out the window. I think she even dreamed of the sea; many times I heard her murmur and gesture towards it in her sleep. She had worked so hard, even whilst her health deteriorated, trying to earn enough money to buy passage on as many ships as she thought she might need to find what she was looking for. She was an honest woman, she wouldn't bargain or stow away, and where she needed to go seemed like the ends of the earth, far from England. But when she became ill, the money she worked so hard for went into medicines. They didn't help her much, she was too far gone by the time I went against her wishes and summoned a doctor. She was failing in body and spirit. Finally she made me promise that I would use what was left of the money to do what she herself couldn't do, to go to sea and head to the west, beyond the shores of Haiti and Cuba, to find what she had been waiting for all those years. Then she had me help her walk to the bluff beyond the town; she searched the horizon one last time, then threw herself over the edge, into the sea that had always held what she wanted back from her."

There was a long pause after these words. Will watched the woman in the water calmly. Her eyes watched him as well. She smiled tenderly up at him, joyful recognition in her eyes; still her lips moved, repeating one syllable. It was impossible to tell if she was saying the name of one man or the other. Both 'Bill' and 'Will' looked and sounded identical when uttered by a voice that was swallowed by the sea.

At last, when Bootstrap spoke, not raising his head from where it was buried in his hands, his voice was thick. "I never knew how she died. She was never very strong; I assumed she died o' sickness."

"She did. But much of the sickness was in her heart. Her love sickness ultimately drove her to her death." Will turned from the view and leaned back against the rail, smiling sadly at Bootstrap's bent form. He rested a hand on his father's shoulder. "I'm not telling you this to punish you or lay blame. By the time she died you were as good as dead yourself; there was nothing you could do to save yourself, let alone her. She chose to died rather than live trapped in her memories, and she was trying to give me a chance, so that I could use the money we had left to try to find you instead of wasting it on medicine for which it was too late. She didn't know that by the time I paid off all the debts and doctor's bills, there was little left; she would've scolded me for stowing away all those years ago. But she did what she thought was best; that sacrifice she made was for me. It was her choice, and that was what she chose. True death, rather than life-in-death, living trapped in memories."

"And I, ever the fool, chose the opposite, an' oh, I regretted it many a time durin' them long years!" Bootstrap's voice was almost a moan. "So many times, after bein' punished or whipped or berated by Davy Jones or one of 'is crew, I would look out an' see her, and how I longed to die meself an' join her! If it hadn't been for my bond with Jones and the years I owed 'im, I would've gladly given up me life to join her in the next world. Even in death, she's still waiting for me."

"Why didn't you go?" Will asked. "Ten years ago, I freed you, I offered you the choice. Why did you stay with me instead of finally going to be with her?"

"Because I knew ye needed me around. God knows leaving you an' her alone while I went to seek the fortune that would put us all up comfortably was the biggest mistake I ever made. I was blinded by greed, wantin' to prove meself to me new family and me old mates. I was thinkin' more o' meself than anyone else. It was a mistake I swore I'd never make again. I suffered the loneliness o' years spent on the ocean, in the Locker, catching glimpses of me beloved's face but never able to join her. And there was no way I could let you suffer that on your own, like I did."

"But I'm doing no better than you. They're still thinking of me. I can't help but wonder if they'd be better off without me. They're only living in the shadow of my absence; if I were gone, they might forget me and truly live their lives in happiness, without me holding them back."

"So that's why you've been mopin' around for the past few days!" Bootstrap thumped the rail with his fist. "Wipe them foolish thoughts right outta yer mind! You think doin' away with yerself will make things any easier for yer wife and child? That's just plain selfishness! Do you truly think they'll live easier in despair than in hope? Is that what yer mother taught you?"

Will didn't know how to answer this right away. After a few moments' reflection he finally asked: "But is there any true hope, or just a delusion? Is there any way to break the curse, or am I doomed to measure my life in decades spent in despair, with only one day's glimmer of hope to keep me going? Will it go on forever, like it did with Jones?"

"I don't know." As much as Bootstrap wanted to reassure his son, doubts were sown in his own mind. He passed a hand over his face and idly tapped his chin, pondering. "Jones never met his lady-love on that 'One Day'. Because of her betrayal 'e shunned land and was forced t' sail the seas forevermore, only ever able t' set foot on sand once in every ten years. An' he never did go ashore again. Not even once. At the end o' each decade 'e would turn his back on the shoreline and stare out at the horizon, growin' more twisted an' villainous as ev'ry year passed. But per'aps, if Calypso had gone to meet 'im on that One Day… it's impossible to say for certain. It's hard jus' to imagine Jones as anythin' other than what he'd become. Part o' what he was was firmly rooted in his soul; he made 'imself a monster, he took that course by choice. I know you'd never consciously make that choice, Will."

"And what if the choice isn't mine to make?" There was a petulant note in Will's voice; clearly these worries had plagued him for some time. "What if years and years and decades and decades of this make me like him, a merciless monster terrorizing the seas? I can't take this forever. Every year feels like a decade to me. I may be alright while I still have someone to see on my One Day, something to look forward to during those long years; but what about when they're dead and gone? They're so vulnerable, surrounded by dangerous men without anyone to protect them; they could died tomorrow, God forbid. Then what? I could just roam the seas forever and ever, growing more and more bitter, gathering more darkness in my soul, until I finally forget what it was to have a heart beating in my chest. Until I become what Davy Jones was."

"I won't let that happen." Turning from the rail, Bootstrap clapped a hand on his son's shoulder, his voice resolute. "I'll stay with you as long as it takes, even for eternity, an' make sure you stay a tad human. If you ever do a single thing like Davy Jones, I'll give you a sharp clip on the ear, to make up for all the ones I missed givin' ye when you was a youngster." Bootstrap was rewarded with a wry grin at this. "It was my weakness that got our family into this, an' I'll be damned if I let you turn into what enslaved me in the first place."

"What about her?" Will cast a glance over the rail again. "She's been waiting this long already. How much longer will you keep her waiting? She'll refuse to move on without you, she'll never rest, and neither will you."

"Bah, how could I face 'er in the next world knowin' you're out here on your own, without anyone to keep ye sane? Ye won't be rid o' me til I know you finally get what you deserve. I swear on the Pirate Code, may Cap'n Teague quarter me an' fry me in oil if I break me promise."

Bootstrap slung an arm around Will and clapped him on the back; father and son embraced.

"Still, I'm hardly alone here," Will pointed out. "You've been a great comfort to me all these years, after waiting so many years of my life to finally meet you. And there's the boatswain as well."

"Bah, what's he good for? The bosun, he was never one to worry 'bout others, we can't put too much stock on 'im." Bootstrap's tone was a flippant and teasing as he said this to Will somewhat confidentially. "I leave you, an' he'll be on shore searchin' for your heart to knife and take the title o' cap'n for 'imself before I had one foot in the grave."

"I heard that," said a voice from the shadow of the companionway, catching them both unawares. "If you think I care only for myself, Mister Turner, kindly remember just how it was that I died ten years ago."

Whilst Bootstrap looked sheepish, Will smiled as he remembered just how the boatswain had joined the father-and-son crew...

* * *

_He had turned from the rail, Beckett's cries having left him and the company of dead men in an oppressive silence. He had looked at the faces of these men who had all returned his gaze silently, all here because they had been slain in the armada, just like him. Fate had placed him in charge of their souls. He knew it was his responsibility to do what was best by them, to give them what they rightly deserved – a final peaceful resting place in the world beyond this one, beyond the reach of the marauder's cutlass and the mutineer's pistol._

_"Look lively!" he remembered saying to the men before him. "This is your last chance to show what kind of sailors you truly are. Prove your mettle one last time, and man this, the _Flying Dutchman_, on your final journey out of this world. Make Calypso proud to have been revered by men such as you. See the mate, Mister Turner, to be assigned your duties."_

_"Why should we listen to you or any other Turner, pray tell?" a voice had rung out from the midst of the crowd. "I know Turners; they are scoundrels and plotters, pirate filth only playing at being gentlemen. What right do you have to order us around? You'll sell us all to Jones for your own means, there's no doubt. Turners are not true gentlemen, they stoop to acting like criminals and traitors to get what they want."_

_The crowd had parted around this outspoken man, undecided, put on edge by his forceful words. Will had regarded the man quietly, feeling something akin to regret. Then he had drawn his sword._

_The man who had accused him hadn't flinch, though the others had, as the blade had slid into the silvery moon's light; yet even he had started in shock as Will had calmly plunged his own sword into his chest and pulled it out again. He had felt the sensation for the first time; it had both frightened and empowered him._

_"Davy Jones is no more. I slew him; I am now captain of this ship, and gentleman or not, I am an infinitely more lenient captain than Jones. I survived Jones' tyranny myself; his own hand dealt me this wound-" here he had loosened his collar so all men could see the scar "-before I slew him. Unlike him, I will do what's right. I will ferry you to the next world, to the peace that awaits you beyond this place, if you will only tend this ship for me, prove your worth as a seaman one last time. No man will be forced to surrender his soul. I will never treat you like the previous captain did. So look lively, and hoist the sails! The sooner your duties are done, the sooner you find the rewards you truly deserve."_

_Acting on these words, each man had done his task and moved on to the next realm. All except the new boatswain, who had stayed on as a means of apology for the insults he had unjustly inflicted; he had pledged loyalty to his captain, and after almost ten years remained faithfully there still._

* * *

Will cast his father a sidelong glance. He was looking down over the rail again, smiling wistfully at the wife who waited for him in the water. Will was aware of the boatswain's presence on the quarterdeck behind him, and even more so of the wife and child he had waiting for him, braving the dangers of the sea for his sake.

_I'm holding so many people back. How can anyone possibly say this is a good thing? How is this the best for anyone? None of us are living; even those two, when they were safe on land, weren't really living life to the full. Why should I hold everyone back? Why should I when it is in my power to release us all?Isn't that the sacrifice I owe everyone? Just like she did for me?  
_

Deep in his own thoughts, Will settled on the rail and watched his mother's ghost in the water below him, wishing her voice could be heard so that she could give him the advise he so sorely needed._  
_


	16. Chapter 15: Tactics

**Chapter 14 – Tactics**

"Ten degrees north… no, six degrees west… no, eight degrees north… no, three degrees west… no-"

"Make up yer ruddy mind!!!"

Jack took no notice of Anderson's blustering and continued to stare at his compass perplexedly. "I would, if my mind would make itself up as to what it really wants right now… does one of you have a pint of grog on you?"

He looked up from his compass, directly at O'Brien, startling the pirate with the suddenness and decisiveness of this action. O'Brien's eyes danced nervously around the captain's quarters, then went to Anderson questioningly. The first mate eyed him sternly and gave him a curt nod. With great reluctance, O'Brien produced a hip flask and handed it over to the eagerly expectant Jack. Anderson didn't fail to notice that the compass' needle had pointed south-south-west, directly at O'Brien, and swivelled slightly to the right as the man passed over his flask, as though the needle followed its progress across the room.

"Ta, mate." Jack tipped the contents of the flask down his throat in one unerringly practiced-looking motion, gulping its contents in a single swallow. O'Brien's face had gone swiftly crimson from the neck upwards as he watched his prized stash flow away. Jack exhaled lustily, smacked his lips, and turned back to the compass.

"That's better."

He stared at the instrument in his palm for a moment, glancing at Anderson and O'Brien every so often, his eyes resting on the various flintlocks and sheathed blades visible in their belts. Then, suddenly, under his unusually focused gaze, the needle whirled erratically. Jack glanced at the angle of the sun streaming through a nearby porthole, turned the compass slightly in his hand accordingly, then nodded his satisfaction.

"North-north-east. You'll need to alter yer course about two degrees east, I'd say."

"Right. Thanks for that." The sarcasm in Anderson's voice made it evident that all this fuss for an alteration of two degrees had hardly been worthwhile.

"Pleasure, mate." Either Anderson's temper didn't worry Jack unduly, or he didn't notice it at all. He was poking through the various artifacts in the cabin, untidily heaped on shelves and upon the table. He examined a letter opener with a delicate pearl-inlaid handle and let it clatter back onto the tabletop; he took up a pen with a solid-gold nib from a pen-holder and replaced it in a pot of ink; it was as he was examining an innately wrought brass candelabra that the candle mount, adorned with rich swirls of gold wire and a pair of fantastic rubies, came away in his hand. Anderson, who had had a vein visibly throbbing in his temple for the past ten minutes, roughly seized it from him and placed it safely on the table with more care than could be credited to his large, calloused hands.

"Don't trifle with this stuff! These're the cap'n's belongings. He'll throw a hellish fit o' temper if anythin' in 'is quarters shows signs of bein' meddled with."

"And where is the good captain?" asked Jack, discreetly eying a promising-looking sea chest near his left foot. "Seein' as I'm his guest, he hasn't exactly been forthright with the introductions. It's been more than a fortnight and I've seen neither hide nor hair of 'im."

O'Brien and Anderson exchanged sly looks behind his back.

"That's not for ye t' know," O'Brien snarled smugly. "He's got his own tasks t' carry out, an' the gales take me if it ain't the most cunnin' scheme the man ever got in 'is brain. He'll cause a lot o' trouble for your friends the Turners before the week is out."

"Is that so?" Jack uttered conversationally, observing their evil expressions in the reflection of a cut-glass vase on a shelf before him. "My guess then is that he's on that ship, the _Lusitania_."

O'Brien's smile lost some of its smugness. "That's right," he admitted reluctantly. "But they'd have trouble findin' him, even if they knew 'e was aboard. Could be starin' him in the face and never expect he's a rogue. That's how wily the cap'n is. For all that he's a dastardly one, he's got charm an' manners t' boot. There's a way bout 'im that makes folk trust him, an' when they do, 'e fleeces 'em for all they're worth. But this next bit is the coup of his life, I assure ye."

"Sounds interesting," Jack replied absently, subtly working his boot towards the sea chest. He gave it a sharp jab with his toe, just above the lock; the bar snapped back with the jolt of the impact and the lid sprung open like that of a jack-in-a-box. "He also has quite the taste in jewels."

Countless opulent gems gleamed coquettishly up at Jack in the half-light; great sapphires as big as swallows' eggs, rubies like glowing embers, strings of pearls wreathing the whole tangled mess together like a glittering magpie's nest. A jagged golden spire jutted out of a pile of gemstones; Jack extracted it with gentle hands, examining it idly. It was a great golden crown, scraps of stained silk still clinging to the inside of the circlet, its ornately wrought points studded with hefty gems. It looked remarkably familiar… in fact, Jack was sure he had felt the weight of it pressing down upon his own brow once… _he remembered it distinctly, leaving an island crowned like a king, his wrists encircled with strands of breads and a golden goblet in each hand, knowing that as he left the shore, he was assuredly rowing towards Port Royal, and the gallows…_

Jack dropped the crown and drew his hands back swiftly as Anderson thrust the lid of the chest back down, nearly on his fingers. He gave Jack a surly look.

"Yer dismissed, Cap'n Sparrow. I trust you'll find yer quarters more comfortable than this cluttered room."

O'Brien stepped forward, snapping a rope suggestively. Jack sighed, and obediently held out his wrists. A few minutes later he was being led through the ship's underbelly, O'Brien yanking on the rope to hurry him whenever he fell the least bit behind, as though he were a particularly mangy dog being tugged on a leash by its master. He was hauled to the bars of the brig; as his foot crossed the threshold he was jerked forward, his foot catching on the door-jamb and almost planting himself on his face.

"Sorry there, mate," O'Brien drawled without a shred of sympathy in his voice, giving him a toothy grin as he idly flicked the frayed end of the rope against the palm of his hand. He turned and walked out through the door, closing it behind him. Jack had time to register that he was still bound by the rope, and that O'Brien had passed his end sneakily through the bars; there was a might tug and Jack, unable to fight the other man's brute strength, was forced to run his forehead into the wall.

"Whoops, my mistake." O'Brien's malicious leer told him it was quite the opposite. The pirate managed to force one podgy hand between the bars and disentangle the rope from Jack's wrists; snapping the end of it in the prisoner's face as a parting shot, he spun on his heel and strode of, whistling; he was heading to the storeroom to refill his hipflask.

Rubbing his stinging cheek, Jack lowered himself to the floor. He propped his feet on a broken stool, leaned against the barred wall and pushed his hat down over his eyes. He stretched from one side of his confines from top to toe, yet from the way he lounged, he might be flopped down on a white beach with a bottle of rum at his elbow. He had every appearance of a man who was very much accustomed to such accommodation. A few minutes passed, during which Jack seemed to be dozing; then a light step and a soft swish of a skirt on floorboards announced a new visitor. A tray was unceremoniously banged down on the floor and a metal cup and tin of stewed, salted meat were thrust into the cell. Jack's hat lifted an inch, and one eye peered out.

"Any rum?"

"No," muttered Anamaria sullenly, dusting her hands on her apron impatiently. "This is pointless. You're just leading us in circles; sooner or later they're going to realize it an' kill you."

"That's where you're mistaken, love. I'm leadin' them right after the Lusitania. You remember the beacon they found the other night?"

"You mean that bottle full o' flaming rags they saw floatin' in the water? They got all excited over that."

"That was a signal left by their captain. They know I've led 'em along the right course."

"The captain's on that ship?" In an instant Anamaria's expression had gone from hostile to downright murderous. Then she reclaimed some of her apathy. "I've been tryin' to use his absence as an opportunity to escape, but it's no use. The captain may be a worse man than Anderson ten times over, but Anderson 'imself is a hard man t' cross. Sooner or later you'll push his temper too far an' he'll do away with you, whether you're leadin' him astray or not."

"That's what I'm countin' on," Jack murmured, so softly and indistinctly that Anamaria frowned at him, not understanding and wondering if she'd heard right.

"Will you help me, lass?" Jack asked suddenly, lifting his hat and swivelling to face her. "You aid me, love, an' I'll break out o' this dove cot before Anderson realizes I've flown. It'll be easy if you only do what I set you. What'ya say?" He gave her his most appealing look; it made him look rather like a bedraggled weasel.

"What's in it for me?"

"That's just what I expected you t' say. Plain and simple, it'll give you the thing you want most: _Freedom_."

"I believe your definition of Freedom was: _A Ship_."

"Not still harpin' on about that, are you, love? I don't even have me own ship, so I can hardly offer one to someone else; and what I offer you is far more valuable than any ol' set o' planks an' sails. How about this: seeing Anderson and O'Brien and the entire crew and their captain all done for, never t' pillage a galleon again. You'll get yer freedom by seeing those that took yours from you lose theirs as an indirect result o' your actions. Now, ain't that valuable?"

Anamaria looked at him with lips parted, eyes burning. She looked rather like a viper preparing to strike; her slender hands unconsciously clenched and unclenched with deliberation, fuelled by a woman's fury. There was no more ruthless and determined ally that Jack could ask for, and he knew it.

"What d'you want me to do?"

"We'll, for a start, you can go get me a pint o' rum, and be quick about it…"

* * *

O'Brien lurched from the storeroom somewhat unstably, his hip flask a comforting weight on his belt. He stepped out into the corridor, and almost collided with the swift, lithe figure of the kitchen maid.

"Oi, watch yerself 'ere, lass!" O'Brien thundered in his impressive baritone. A moment later, another voice, somewhat more thin and whiny, issued from the bowels of the ship:

"Oi, watch yerself 'ere, lass! Don't drag them pretty heels o' yours! I want that rum, and don't you let it get warm before you get it back 'ere! For all my yellin' I'm getting a mighty thirst, an' you'll hear worse if you don't hurry it up!"

Anamaria gasped and darted into the storeroom with a flustered tread. _Poor downtrodden rat,_ O'Brien thought to himself. _She's even bein' ordered 'round by the prisoner. For a man o' such intelligence an' charm, the cap'n fell fer rather a common face an' lack o' wits in that one. At least 'e quite broke her spirit; she looks unusual quiet for her._

"What 'ere," he said aloud, "Don't waste good grog on that there cockroach."

"Best t' comply, sir," Anamaria murmured, watching the trickle from the keg flow into the waiting tankard. "He'll yell the ship down if 'e doesn't get his drink. I know that for a fact."

"Eh now? You known 'im before?"

"Sure did, I sailed on 'is ship before I joined this one, and it was an ordeal, I can tell you! The man's behaviour never changes. Always hollerin' for drink! He's somewhat crafty when he's sober, but on the bottle he's downright pathetic! Nearly dropped himself in the drink once, so far gone two men couldn't hold him on 'is feet, and he lumbered straight over the side as though the ship had no rails. Lucky he caught 'is foot in a rope as he went over, or 'e would've gone down to the Locker faster than an anchor without a line. They managed to haul him in with more seawater than grog in 'im, and 'e was laid up for a week. He-"

"My tongue's well nigh parched! Where are you, yer dratted girl!"

Anamaria hastily snatched up the overflowing tankard, looking sheepish at her outburst, and hustled out of the storeroom. She left O'Brien there leaning against a crate, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. There was a malicious glint in his eye, the kind that alighted there as the usually slow wheels of the pirate's mind began to crank with an uncanny intuition and creativity for what he did best: murder.

Anamaria smirked to herself.

* * *

The trip that had started for Elizabeth and Will as agonizingly slow was now almost torturous. Nearly all the able-bodied men were now either dead or locked away in the brig, and those who remained had a hard time tending to the ship. Will had to help wherever he could, often shouldering the work of a grown man five times his size. Even Elizabeth again went aloft after a few days' recuperation, Dr Trevellyan shaking his head morosely whenever she did so. The good doctor was now more or less in charge of the ship. The captain, his nerves shattered by the ordeal, rarely ventured from his quarters other than for meals or to give the doctor an approving nod, hoping to impress the crew with a shadow of his former authority, which had been shaky at best, before retreating nervously to his cabin under the disgusted looks of the men. The doctor, in his stead, proved himself an able leader, and was well liked by the men. There was a confidence that he would lead them to safety with a firm and capable hand, something that could hardly be credited to Bellamy.

Every evening Dr Trevellyan, Elizabeth, Will and Tai Huang met for a campaign meeting. These had to be held in the infirmary, as Tai Huang was still flat on his back. Though the doctor had assured him that his current progress was remarkable, he lamented that he couldn't be of more use. In any case there was little to be done other than the routine ship maintenance, and that in itself was a challenge with less than a quarter of the men they had started out with, so the meetings often consisted of a progress report followed by indeterminate periods of uneasy silence, punctured by rare bursts of stilted conversation.

Elizabeth and Tai Huang had discussed how much Trevellyan should be told, and it was decided in the favour of security and the good doctor's safety to keep him in the dark as much as possible. He was told only that it was imperative – a matter of life and death, in fact – that they should reach a certain point on an island off Cuba's coast within a week's time. For all that, Trevellyan had a fair inkling of what was taking place. He knew who the mysterious sailor in the black bandanna had been, at least in relation to Elizabeth and Will; he had overheard father and son's conversation in the sickroom. And being a ship's doctor, he had heard things - stories told by injured men, bored by their confinement to their bed and with no one else to confide in; men delirious, talking in the grips of high fevers, seeing terrors not really there and speaking their darkest secrets involuntarily to the physician who administered to them. All of it had provided the doctor with both an awareness and an understanding of just what was possible out on the high seas. His eloquent looks at Elizabeth at their first campaign meeting had told her not to treat him as an ignorant fool, and henceforth she spoke more freely in his presence than she might have done otherwise.

Though Elizabeth and Will both tried to appear unaffected and casual when in company, which on a working ship confined to a small space was most of the time, the strain of the situation upon them was telling, and it affected the entire crew. Every man seemed to feel their desperation, or perhaps it was the knowledge that half a dozen traitors sat below them in the brig; tempers were short and all revelry long dispensed with. Everyone seemed anxious to reach sight of land, the prospect of abandoning ship at the next port crossing more than one mind.

For Will the time of waiting seemed to pass longer than any period of time he had yet experienced in his lifespan. He alone shared the full force of his mother's anguish, and perhaps he felt it more keenly, as he had seen somewhat more of the mutiny's terror than her and had heard his father's disheartening words. He might have been given to tears of despair and frustration if it hadn't been for the ship's galley. There alone he found true refuge from the grim situation; in front of the neurotic men and his poor mother he found it hard to smile, but the cook seemed to now have double his former cheeriness within him, and thus cheered Will along as well whenever his errands brought him below deck.

Indeed, on one occasion the cook went above deck, an occurrence which had hitherto been rare in the extreme, and even ascended aloft, hauled upwards by two stout men on a plank suspended from a cargo pulley. Once there, he clambered about quite happy like some oversized ape, slivering lizard-style with his bandaged stump up and down the rigging. After that one time, poor Dr Trevellyan forbade a repeat performance; though he didn't particularly take to the loud, undeterrably raucous man, his regard for human life was high, and the sight of the poor creature slithering about twenty feet in the air disconcerted him more than his nerves, thus far steely enough to handle the situation, could quite take. Even his stayed disposition had its limits. Not to be deterred, the cook often clambered about on deck helping with ropes and knots, sometimes on his crutch, on rare occasions upon a moth-eaten wooden leg which looked a trifle longer than his remaining one.

He alone, least able-bodied of the lot of them, remained in excellent spirits, and Will often made excuses to solicitude his company. Being able to laugh and jest with the kindly man as he had formerly made him remember his initial innocent delight at going to sea and put him at ease, calling to his mind the chaotic brand of friendliness that he now often longed for way back at the Benbow Inn. All the same, as he clambered back up the companionway, he would wish to the very bottom of his heart that their journey would end soon, and they would come to the rendezvous point well before that One Day, so long awaited and now so swiftly approaching.

* * *

_"We export 'n litter 'n fillupa sack, DRINK UP ME HEARTIES, YO HO!"_

A rum-sogged voice murmured this dubiously-worded shanty, suddenly exploding with volume with the end of each verse.

_"Da-der-der-da-da, an' hi there Jack, DRINK UP ME HEARTIES, YO HO!"_

After each line, there was a slight, uncertain pause, during which audible cringes and plaintive protestations could be heard from other parts of the ship.

"_Yo-ho, ho-yo, a pilot's life for free!"_

A second after this line was heard, a frantic pattering of feet and a swift swish of skirts could be heard progressing through the ship, followed by the voices of men making their displeasures vocal.

"Come lass, were yer sleepin' in the galley cupboard or sumthin'?"

"No one could sleep through that load o' tosh, Tom! I don't wonder if Cap'n Turner 'imself heard it! Heh heh!"

"Really, yer dratted girl, it's intolerable most times, but he's steadily forgettin' the words! I had half a mind to get 'im a pint meself! What kept yer, ye lazy worthless worm?!"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" a breathless voice was heard to say, accompanied by those progressively louder, closely spaced steps, skirt hems swishing like further murmured apologies. "I was pouring the soup out of the pot into the tureen, an' I couldn't very well drop the boiling pot in the middle of the wooden floor an' run off now, could I? And I couldn't hang it back over the fire without spoiling supper for us all. So I-" At that moment, this explanation was cut short by a loud:

_"-black sheets and really bad eggs, DRINK UP ME HEARTIES, YO HO!"_

This time the line was shouted with an iota less volume; less enough to just hear over it a faint pitter-patter as a tankard was filled somewhere. Then the footsteps started again, growing closer still. Finally, Anamaria entered the brig with a full mug in her hand, to be greeted by:

_"-bleggars an' bighters and ner-to-tell cats, DRINK UP ME HEARTIES, YO HO!"_

Anamaria covered her mouth to stop from laughing out loud at Jack's newly accustomed way of requesting grog. Obviously, far from being put out by her dash through the ship, she was delighted by the agitation it had caused all the pirates within earshot – that is, the entire ship. Even Anderson couldn't have avoided hearing it in his quarters beside the captain's chamber. Jack grinned proudly.

"You did well, love," he said in a voice much quieter, clearer and better enunciated than his previous singing voice. "A good seven or so minutes that was before you got here. I drove 'em nigh well crazy with all those mixed-up lyrics. Thirsty work, though; I nearly made my voice hoarse and slurred for real there. I could use a mouthful of the good stuff." He took several great gulps from the tankard Anamaria had passed him, then sighed appreciatively and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. He weighed the now half-empty tankard in his hand, and uttered with a rueful expression: "I hate to waste good rum, but it's for a mighty good cause, and I'd better not really be drunk for the next bit to come." After a moment's hesitation, he tipped the tankard's contents down a knot-hole in the floor. The precious liquid could be heard trickling away somewhere in the bilges.

"No matter how many times I see you do that, I never quite believe I'm seeing it," Anamaria declared with a bemused shake of her head. "If someone had ever told me I'd see Jack Sparrow poring away perfectly good grog-"

"I know, love," Jack replied in a resigned tone of voice. "If news got out, they'd expel me from Pirate's Court. It's a damn felony to waste such fine liquor, that it is." Then, in an even lower tone with none of its former flippancy, he asked: "Did you get everything?"

"It was damn hard an' it took me long enough to track it all down, but it's there, like you said. Could've well made me own escape with all the goods I got for you, I don't know why I-"

"Now there, lass, think of the bigger picture," Jack soothed her swiftly, using his most convincing tones. "By doing this, you're getting your revenge and aiding the one man who can possibly get you that ship you've always pined after."

Anamaria eyed him dubiously. "If you'd told me again that you could get me one, I'd have dropped mercury in yer drink. What makes you think Turner will get me a ship after all this?"

Jack eyed his now-empty tankard with a mixture of suspicion and slight fear before answering. "The previous master o' Davy Jones' Locker got me a ship. I don't see why the current one can't get you one, and he'll charge you less for it t' boot." He paused for thought, seemingly calculating something in his head, his lips working silently and ticking some things off on his fingers, head cocked to one side. "Now, the only thing I need is-"

He stopped expectantly, and as though prompted by his silence, Anamaria reached into the folds of her skirt and passed him a fistful of something through the bars.

"Excellent. Yer worth your weight in gold, love." Not bothering to look up to see her roll her eyes at this empty flattery, Jack took up the scrap of paper and stick of charcoal he had been given and set eagerly to work. He unknowingly smeared a blotch of soot on his own cheek as he paused, considering his task; then scribbled away rapidly. He then turned the rough square over and scrubbed vigorously away at it with the charcoal. Smiling delightedly and apparently pleased with his creation, he passed both items back to Anamaria, who took the grimy paper and crumbling charcoal stick gingerly.

"You know what to do with it?" Jack asked, dusting his sooty hands on his trousers.

"Of course." As she spoke, Anamaria carefully replaced the paper in the pocket of her skirt, being careful not to smudge Jack's efforts, and carelessly tossed the rest of the charcoal away into a corner.

"Are you sure you can do it?"

Anamaria raised an eyebrow. "Do you really need to ask? Am I a buccaneer or not? Do you have any idea how long I have been waiting to do just that? I've even picked out the ideal tool."

Jack nodded at her with grim satisfaction. "Well then, if yer that eager, let's put this genius plot o' mine into action sooner rather than later." And he sang softly, almost quite musically compared to his previous attempt, under his breath:_"Aye, but we're loved by our mommies and dads; Drink up, me hearties, yo ho…"_

* * *

It was an hour before midnight. Most hands were sprawled in their hammocks or, if they were distinguished enough, curled up on narrow beds in their quarters. No one, not even the men on sentry duty, heard the furtive movements of one man below deck. Unseen and assured of his privacy, he rifled through a pile of sacks and boxes until his hand found what he sought – a rough burlap bag, small and non-descript enough to pass noticing. Eager hands, covered with calluses from seafaring days, carefully drew out their prize, apparently cautious of making any unwarranted sounds. A slight clinking emitted from the sack's contents as the neck of the cloth was unknotted and opened wide. It was full of buckshot – countless tiny pellets of metal, perfectly adequate for blowing out a man's brain if loaded into a proper firearm. The man smiled grimly, almost wolfishly, gloating over his secret stash. _This would come in very handy… not yet, but soon… in a few days, it would be invaluable… quite a lot of damage could be done with all of this…_

There were sudden footsteps on a nearby stair. Rather than try to hastily hide the bag, which would've appeared suspicious, the man clasped the bag casually, as though it held everyday items not worthy of particular care or concealment, and awaited the newcomer without any nervousness. A swift smile came readily, if not quite sincerely, to his lips; his manner, before all terse action, became rather careless and genial.

"Eh now, you're up late for a young lad! What can I do for ye, young Master Turner?"

"Sorry to bother you so late," Will murmured apologetically.

"Not at all, lad. I was just shellin' pecans." The bag was shaken lightly to release a clattering noise; Will was oblivious to what it really held. "They be as hard as conkers, but given a day's stewin' in molasses, they'll taste right fine with a bit o' crust underneath 'em."

"Really, you spoil us with all this grand food," Will said with a grin. The bag remained innocent in his eyes. "Do you need help shelling?"

"No no, lad, you get along to bed, you need your rest, yer more use round this ship than an invalid like me. Besides it's a small job an' near finished, I was 'bout to turn in meself. So few men left workin' won't need too many pecans, and prisoners miss out, o' course. But now, what can I get ye tonight?"

"Allan McGinty is ill, so I came for some castor oil. Most of the other lads were asleep so I said I'd get it for him. I know where it's kept so I just meant to fetch it, I didn't want to bother you."

"Not at all. Gulls will swim like fish afore my cookin' gives men's stomachs trouble, so my supply of castor oil is quite plentiful. Young McGinty's welcome to it; for all he's a sailor's son, he has more stomach trouble out here than a nobleman. It's a crying shame for a supposed seaman; I'll supply him all the tonic he need if he'll quite makin' such a green-faced spectacle of 'imself." Suiting the action to his words, he hobbled over to a cupboard and took down a small bottle, then shuffled with it over to Will.

"Thanks, Mister Silver."

The cook grinned good-naturedly down at him. One of his teeth glimmered brighter than the rest in the light of the solitary dim lantern.

"By now, Will me lad, I think you can call me John. I'm always Long John to me friends." And he tapped his wooden leg, longer than his real one by a good few inches, with his crutch for emphasis.

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Lyrics to _"Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life for Me)"_ were written by Xavier Atencio. I take no credit for their creation. For the full song, visit http://themeparks. , as I did. Wai-Jing 


	17. Chapter 16: Deception

**Chapter 16 - Deception**

It was almost an hour after midnight. A lone glowing light from a single lantern hovered like a spectre in the doorway. The tankard in Anamaria's other hand caught its gleam.

"So, how do we do this?"

Jack got up and stretched his stiff muscles, seemingly loosening himself up for a spot of exercise. "This whole caper doesn't go ahead if I can't get out of here without Anderson's key; I know there's no chance in hell or high water that you'll get that for me-"

Here Anamaria nodded in agreement and muttered "I do value me own skin, you know-"

"-so I'll have to rely on a tip I picked up from the old days. This thing here looks like just what I need."

'This thing' turned out to be a broken stool that had been thrown in the brig for the paltry comfort of its inhabitants. As unlikely as it looked, Anamaria watched with incredulous fascination as Jack lifted it purposefully and began to closely scrutinize the bars.

"Let's see… I think he said it was a sort of joint… this one here should do alright… it's low and in a corner, so less likely the welders paid as much attention to it… if I can just work out how to apply the pressure-" He rammed the end of the stool into the point where the bars crossed, levered the corner of the seat against the joint, and wrenched hard. The bars creaked, then slowly buckled; encouraged, Jack took a deep breath and twisted again. With a low groan, the metal gave; three of the bars pulled away from the floor, leaving just enough space for Jack's scrawny form to squeeze through.

"The sparrow's flown," he joked, dusting himself off, cocking his head to one side thoughtfully as he did so. "I can't believe that actually worked a second time. The Turner lad wasn't as stupid as he seemed."

"I'm impressed," Anamaria admitted. Her eyes were bright and animated. "So now it starts."

"So it does. You sure you got everything?"

"Upon a lady's honour."

"Upon a what's_ what?_"

"Huh, that's some cheek, you ungrateful wretch! All the same, don't worry, it's all there."

"Well, looks like I'll have to take you at your word. I'll start with that, then." Anamaria handed him the tankard he'd indicated. "Time to get ready for my bath," he grinned, tipping the contents all over himself. "Get ready to start screaming." And he threw the empty mug with all his might on the floor, where it smashed into hundreds of pieces.

* * *

Anderson was woken by a succession of intrusive sounds.

The first was a mysterious creaking, as though the ship itself were moaning somewhere beneath his quarters. It was this sound that roused him from sleep. Though initially annoyed at being woken, the noise didn't really alarm him. Sounds like a ballast has come loose in the bilges, he thought drowsily.

The next noise caught his attention. It was the sound of something shattering. This was closely followed by a dull roar, and an almost simultaneous shriek, so high-pitched it could only be that of a woman. It was this sound that made Anderson hurl himself out of his bunk, and the following thumps, men's shouts, stomping of feet, and continued bellowing that made him grab his cutlass on his way out the door.

He barreled down the companionway, seeing other men running in the same direction. They glanced at him and wordlessly followed him towards the source of the cacophony, curiosity and wariness alternating in their expressions. They came across a knot of men shifting uncertainly around the centre of the disturbance. As Anderson approached, the kitchen maid brushed through the crowd and scampered away like a fleeing animal.

"He's gone crazy," she screeched over the tumult. "He wouldn't settle down without another lot o' grog, so I brought 'im one to shut him up, but I accidentally dropped it an' he turned into a perfect beast! He somehow broke outta the brig an-"

"Yer dratted, blasted girl, I'll tan yer hide and use ye as a waterskin if ye don't find me a pint! I'm nell pigh warched!... Ye fellows all be sleep walkin', this ain't the place… this pub's too crowded as is… don't get between me an' the bar… me friends own the Benbow an when they hear…"

The prisoner stumbled towards Anderson. His eyes were bleary and his gait like that of a man on a storm-tossed ship, though the Walrus was remarkably still. Shrugging off the men who, protesting, tried to block his path, he blundered straight into Anderson, who caught a breath full of alcohol fumes in his face.

"Spare a few coins for a thirsty sailor, mate?" Jack slurred, leaning heavily on his shoulder and hiccupping four times in his ear. "I think I've drunk me own wallet dry. This embellishment is ruddy explensive…"

Anderson recoiled in disgust. "Drunken fool!" he roared and batted angrily at Jack. Taken completely unawares, the drunkard toppled, stumbled a dozen paces, and amazingly didn't land on his face. He pulled himself upright by grabbing onto the wall and began to inch his way along it like a man clinging to a cliff-face, about to topple backwards if he let go.

"I don' like thish place," he drawled thickly as he went along unhindered, the crew watching him with part revulsion, part bemusement. Anamaria cringed away from him, but he didn't even glance at her. "I miss me mates at The Faithful Bride… folks 'ere don't hit worvy patrons o'er the 'ead for no reason like that scoundrel did t' me, the bastid…" Realizing Jack referred to himself, Anderson coloured in an instant and looked after him murderously; completely oblivious, Jack continued his unsteady progress along the corridor, still muttering. "Yessir, that's where I wanna be, the Facial Bide on Tortooga… I'll go there, I'll go… I'll get me plenty 'o drink there-"

He backed off the wall, took a few staggering steps, then suddenly dashed headlong towards the companionway with a speed that wouldn't have been thought possible for a man so thoroughly drowned in spirits. Anderson and some of the other crew members started fearfully.

"Get after 'im, quick! Who knows what mischief he'll do on deck when he's that far gone!" Following Anderson's example, the rest of the men hurried after Jack. Anamaria followed more hesitantly; O'Brien, who had arrived after the rest of the lot from his quarters near the bow, paused where he was, concealed from her in the shadow of a doorway, and saw something that looked like a triumphant leer on her face. He waited a few moments until she had gone, then followed her, wondering as he went.

Anderson was trying to shout orders at the chaotic rabble as the men tussled with Jack, who was flailing from one side of the ship to the other rather like an escaped bird, somehow evading them all.

"Trim them sails! Hang the colours high! Put the anchor up! Steer before the wind! I wanna go to Tortuga! Hurry up, me hearties, we'll all go! Set sail, set sail! We'll drink til we're sick as sieves! Tack that line! Fill the tankards! Drinks ahoy!" Evading the hands of the four closest men, he rushed at a cluster of rigging, but caught his foot in a coiled rope, overshot his mark, and pitched headfirst straight over the rail, hurtling into the dark waters with a loud yell and a tumultuous splash. He came up a few seconds later, blubbering and blustering.

"Help, help! I fell in the Locker! Pull me out! Hurry, hurry! Ah! The kraken's got me ankle! I can feel it pulling me down! Help me up! Where's a line?! HELP ME!!"

Cursing, one of the pirates darted forward whilst the men stood heckling and reached for the very rope Jack had tripped on, preparing to hurl it over the side after their floundering prisoner. A rough hand closed on his wrist, stopping him.

"Ha, why bother? He was half-drowned 'afore he fell in anyways! Let 'im stay in the drink where 'e belongs!"

"Help! Help! Hel- pfft! Ack! Help, help!" Jack appeared to have sobered swiftly in the icy cold water. His frenzied flailing was rather pitiful to watch. Anamaria, though she stood on the deck with a clear view of her stricken acquaintance, no longer looking at him, seemingly indifferent and deaf to his cries. O'Brien, standing nearby, watched her face closely as he raised his voice and began to sing loudly, raucously, and non-too-melodically:

_"What do you do with a drunken sailor,_

_ What do you do with a drunken sailor,_

_ What do you do with a drunken sailor,_

_ Earl-eye in the morning!"_

The entire crew roared with laughed and swiftly joined in, drowning out the now feebler cries of the still-struggling man beyond the rail. Anderson, in a position of authority and not condescending to join in with the crew, nevertheless wore a smug smile as he stood listening with obvious relish.

_"Give 'im a dose of salt and water,_

_ Give 'im a dose of salt and water,_

_ Give 'im a dose of salt and water,_

_ Earl-eye in the morning!"_

The lantern on deck couldn't reach out over the rail with its light. It was getting harder and harder to discern Jack amongst the shadows of the swells; one second they saw his white shirtsleeves fluttering madly in the spray, the next only a few inky dreadlocks could be seen bobbing upon the water's surface. The spot where he had disappeared churned slightly, rippled, bubbled vaguely, then returned to the smooth sway of the tide. This somewhat anticlimactic finish was met with cheers of merriment; the crew had apparently enjoyed this morbid entertainment. There was much coarse laughter and lewd jesting, the crew yowling joyfully like wolves over the scent of blood. Suddenly Anderson's voice rang out over the others:

"Blast it, he still had the compass!"

The sounds of celebration diminished abruptly. The men looked at the ocean somewhat remorsefully. It was impossible now to even pick the spot where Jack had disappeared.

"There's no chance he left it in the brig?" one man murmured hopefully. His suggestion was grudgingly disproved. Everyone knew that Jack's compass had been the justification of his life whilst on board, and he had kept it safe on his own person at all times. Surely it must still be there – on its way down to Davy Jones' Locker.

"What if he tells him about us?" someone whispered fearfully, and a superstitious tremble went through all the men. "He was friends with 'im in life; it'd be easy to get revenge, just by settin' the _Dutchman_ after us…"

"Ha!" barked a fearless voice; O'Brien's. "Y'know what the day after tomorrow is. He'd have one day to exact his revenge, true, but he might not risk it so close to the end o' the ten years."

"Besides that," Anderson interrupted, swiftly reasserting his authority, "Our cap'n holds the trump card. He can't do much to us with 'is own in the cap'n's hand. After two more days none o' this'll matter. As for findin' the island, we're so close now, it'll be easy for ol' Barbeque to send us a sign if 'e needs us. From here out it's plain sailin'."

Heads nodded in agreement. The confidence of the crew was somewhat restored, though they were now far more subdued. At Anderson's word, they obediently slunk back to their bunks. As she passed him on her way back below deck, O'Brien gave Anamaria a mocking sneer. With a sulky pout, barely seeming to notice him nor to acknowledge what had just taken place, she brushed past him with a haughty air. In the gloom no one saw her lips move, but O'Brien alone distinctly heard what they whispered. His eyes widened in surprise; then a slow, greedy smile spread across his broad face. He lumbered off with a spring of gaiety in his step.

Down in the galley, Anamaria polished some silverware, stopping as she did so to heave a small, satisfied-sounding sigh.

* * *

As the _Walrus_ glided over the ocean like a wraith, various shipwreck debris bobbed in her wake, like scraps left by a hungry shark. Beside a floating piece of cylindrical wood, a large clump of seaweed drifted. Suddenly it rose sharply out of the water, though the waves around it were no more than ripples. Something came up underneath it.

Pushing sodden dreadlocks from his eyes, Jack coughed and spat the piece of pipe from his mouth. It didn't go far; it was attached to the buttonhole on his shirt collar with a piece of string.

"Yech! Should've cleaned it a bit before I used it! This end seems to have been on the floor!"

The broken stool had been useful to Jack in more ways than one. Painstakingly, over days and days spent lolling about in the brig, he had sawn away at a rickety leg with the edge of his belt buckle, delighting when he had managed to sever it in finding it to be hollow; he had carefully sanded back its edges on a rough section of the floor. It made a handy, though primitive, breathing apparatus once it had been lined with oiled paper carefully stuck on with melted candle wax, both of which had been brought to him by Anamaria.

He glanced around swiftly. Already the _Walrus_ was beginning to slide away from him, a hulking shape in the salty haze. _Right,_ he thought to himself, _best catch up with it, or I'm a goner in this freezing-cold water, and I'll be seein' the Turners sooner than I planned._

Reluctantly replacing the pipe in his mouth, he put his head back down and began to swim with long, practiced strokes. The pipe was a good two foot long; beneath the murky water, he wasn't discernible to any prying eyes which might watch from the ship. He circled around behind her, swimming in her shadow as she came between himself and the moon. In the darkness, shivers creeping up his spine from the bitter coldness all the while, he groped around in the water. Every time his hand found a piece of driftwood, he felt along it hopefully, then let it go, swimming further. Finally, about twenty feet from the ship, his hand hit something; he felt along its length. The wood grain continued past the furthest point his fingers could reach. Satisfied and thanking Calypso in his mind, he reached up out of the water. Feeling around, his hand found a wooden ledge. He grabbed it and hauled himself up out of the water's grasp.

He found himself lolling on the floor of a wooden dinghy, his wet clothes clinging to him like a coating of frost, his breath rising as clouds in the chill night air. After a few minutes' hard breathing as he recovered from his dip, he began to explore his new quarters, perhaps more diminutive even than his previous prison cell.

The first thing he did was to take the kitchen knife he had carefully wrapped in a canvas rag and tucked into his belt, and cut the line that tied the tiny boat to the ship. After all, he was considered dead and the crew of the Walrus were no longer of use to him; no point tagging along after the sleek, knife-like ship any longer, pretty though she was. Next, his hand felt along the sides of the boat in the gloom. Both hands found a thick rope tied to either side of the craft. He tugged up first one, then the other; they were both about four feet long, and tied to the end of each was an oar. Then he felt underneath the one bench seat in the middle of the boat. Tied underneath it was an oilpaper parcel, which felt full of supplies. Jack grinned at his own ingeniousness and Anamaria's capability. From the deck it would have looked like an empty, unequipped dinghy towed behind the ship, not worthy of any notice; in actual fact, he had had Anamaria rig it up as an escape craft. Now he was floating free, in a boat of his own. He grinned.

"Bring me that morning horizon. Then we'll see about getting to that island. I just hope Anamaria goes through with the rest of my plan."

* * *

His footfalls muffled on the _Walrus'_ solid planks, O'Brien paced the deck near the prow. His dark lantern was concealed from the eyes of the men on night watch by a pile of crates. He paced up and down the rail, every ten steps or so his footsteps slowing and accompanied by the slosh of a grog flask being upended. His expression was terse, yet veiled an underlying eagerness. Every so often, a smile broke upon his lips and his eyes quivered in nervous glee.

Another set of softer footfalls approached stealthily. O'Brien stopped his pacing to peer expectantly into the darkness. There was a pause as the footsteps stopped and somewhere fabric swished softly against wood; then, somewhat hesitantly, Anamaria stepped around the crates and stopped a few feet away from O'Brien. The pirate stood quietly, pretending to be disinterested; but he shot strained glances at her occasionally, and his hands fluttered, changing their grip on the rail constantly. Whether Anamaria noticed this in the dimness was impossible to tell.

At last, in a hoarse whisper he almost snarled at her: "Have you got it?"

"I said I did, didn't I?" Anamaria's tone was sullen, and somewhat wary.

O'Brien gave her a sidelong glance, something almost like respect in his hard, greedy eyes. "I cain't figure you, wench. At firs' I thought you was just dull an' scared; yet you managed this… When did you take it?" The swiftness of this question uncaringly pushed any further curiosity in Anamaria's capabilities aside.

"I had plenty o' opportunity. He was so often drunk an' barely even conscious, it wasn't hard to reach through the bars and take it while he was unawares. I kept 'is wits well-oiled, so he was never lucid enough to notice it gone."

"And why're you offerin' it to me?"

There was an uncertain pause. "Well, I'm in no position to use it. I figure you're not acting as cap'n here, you don't really answer to no one and you need not consider the rest of the crew, you might be more in a position to… commandeer what you need. Who better to throw my lot in with?"

"An' anyone can use it, you say?"

"Yep. All it needs is to detect what you want most, an' it'll lead you straight to it. A babe could use it."

"Let's see it then!"

O'Brien's voice was full of expectancy and his fingers stretched out eagerly. Glancing around as though to check no one saw, Anamaria drew closer to him and reached slowly within the folds of her skirt. His eyes watching her hands, O'Brien didn't see the ruthless look in her eyes and saw the flash of steel too late. He gave a hoarse cry, which was quickly muffled by a wadded rag being thrust into his mouth, and his knees buckling, he collapsed heavily against the rail.

"Ye knuckle-headed fool." Anamaria's voice held a new, clear relentlessness quite different to her half-fearful, almost snivelling tone from before. "He's not dead, but you are. He and the compass are out there; and you're going where you thought you sent him. He planned all this; right up to the… hilt-"

The handle of the kitchen knife was carefully wrapped in rags so no telltale blood could fall on the deck. Upon her last words, Anamaria twisted the knife that was buried in O'Brien's chest. He moaned faintly, and a blood foam began to dribble out from between his gagged lips. With deft fingers, Anamaria plucked the flask from his belt and reached for his breast pocket. A look of surprise came into her face; it changed in an instant to a devious look.

"Oh, you already have one, do you? Then you won't mind delivering an extra message from Jack an' me."

O'Brien dimly heard a rustling of paper, and something was thrust into his pocket; then, his strength ebbing away too fast as his lifeblood began to run down Anamaria's hands from the soaked rag, he could do nothing to save himself as she heaved him over the rail. He made a quiet, nondescript splash and swiftly sank from view.

Anamaria wiped her hands on the dishcloth she had thoughtfully brought with her and threw it after him. Then she tipped the contents of the flask on the deck and dropped it near the rail. When members of the crew would find it the following morning, they would assume that O'Brien had met a similar fate to Jack. Anamaria spared a glance out at the thick, inky fog that streamed in the ship's wake before making her way back to the kitchen with, mixed feelings of pride in a job well done and disappointment in an opportunity lost.

_That could've been my escape. Jack Sparrow, you owe me, big time!_

* * *

Jack, now clothed in dry garments that had been borrowed from the Walrus and stashed in the parcel beneath the seat, twirled the oars idly in the water, watching as the sky turned from pitch black to inky grey in the east. Soon it would be time to start rowing – he had a long way to go in only a day and a night. Reaching for his belt, he flipped open his compass. It was hard to tell whether its mechanisms had been addled by the water or not; the dial spun frenetically, then finally swung to point ahead of him. Jack grinned. _Gotta think of meself before I think of others. What I really want before I start breakin' me back over the oars is a bit o' sustenance._

Now it was becoming light, he could explore his supplies more extensively beyond the dry clothes he had, shivering violently, gladly pulled on, blind in the darkness. He rifled through the oilskin. Hard tack. A small bag of peanuts, unshelled. A threadbare sail that might come in handy as a blanket or torn into bandages. A pistol which seemed to have been previously discarded for having a worn flintlock mechanism, but still operational. Dried beef jerky. A bag of shot (not to be mixed up with the nuts). A cutlass carefully wrapped in a piece of leather acting as a sheath; it was in a similar state to the pistol, chipped and worn. A tinder box. A coil of rope. Finally, he found what he really wanted; a flask.

Eagerly he unstoppered it and, jamming it to his lips, threw his head back. A moment later he spat and spluttered. He shook the flask with a look of askance at it, tipped a bit of its contents on the boat's floor; he cast it aside and rifled through the oilskin; he cast that aside and felt all underneath his seat, then rifled through the bag again. Finally, he took up the flask again. Shaking it ruefully, he stared after the Walrus' wake, mentally checking again and again the instructions he had given Anamaria. Trust her to let him down!

"Only water?! Where's the rum?!"

* * *

Two pieces of near-identical paper lay on the ship's rail. Each bore a dark spot on its centre. The last few souls were streaming skywards; Bootstrap watched them go before leaning to look over Will's shoulder. The struggling bellowing figure in the Locker below – the one who had only hours earlier received Anamaria's deadly stab of the knife - had long since ceased. O'Brien had embarked upon his second descent into the cold, menacing depths of the sea.

Will turned the papers idly over in his fingers. The first one, which he had found in O'Brien's pocket, was of little interest; it was identical to the ones Rackham and Hands had delivered to him. It was the other one that held Will's attention. On its back was scrawled with charcoal in thick, clumsy letters:

SHIP WALRUS - AFTER TURNERS - DANGEROUS -

CAPTURED, ESCAPED - ROWING TO ISLAND -

CAPN ON LUSITANIA

In one corner was a blob of charcoal-stained wax with a tiny design pressed into it; a bird of some sort. Will and Bootstrap both vaguely remembered seeing the same design, on a ring or a bead perhaps.

Bootstrap shook his head. "Still getting into mischief, I see."

"Still meddling in the affairs of other as well. I suppose I should've expected as much." Will was smiling wryly as he said so. He continued to turn the paper in his hands. The light of the lantern caught something silvery upon the spot of ink. Will squinted at it, his eyes widening. He passed the paper to Bootstrap. "Well, now we know who the master mind is, and apparently he's on the _Lusitania_."

Though Will's voice was even, Bootstrap's practiced ear heard the concern in it. He shot his son an uneasy glance, look wistfully at the still-dark horizon, then glanced at the paper he had been handed. Something was written on the Black Spot in charcoal; it was more than the initials on the others Will had received, and Bootstrap recognized it as having been written by Jack's unsteady hand. After a few moments, he made out two words:

JOHN SILVER

"At least now we have a name," Bootstrap growled as he took hold of a nearby rope. Will didn't reply; his hand never touched the railing beside him as the Dutchman dipped her bow, then plunged downwards with a speed, suddenness and grace that would have appeared alarming, had anyone besides her scant crew been there to witness the feat.

Though the ties of his bandanna and the hem of his coat floated dreamily about him as the water rushed past the Dutchman's mast like a black gale, Will stayed with both feet firmly on the deck as though they were rooted to the timbers themselves. For a moment the entire ship hung suspended in the water, her inky sails tinged cobalt blue; then flashes of light could be seen through the veil of water before them. Breaking the surface of the water from underneath, the ship burst through the waves with nary a drop of moisture upon her decks, her wood warming beneath the sun's first rays.

* * *

Will couldn't lay still any longer. He saw the sun's first rays peeping through the porthole. _This exact time tomorrow, we'll be standing on the island, and when the first rays appear, so will he…_

Hot energy raced right through him. He couldn't wait any longer; he had to get up and do something to take his mind off it before he went crazy. Glancing cautiously at his mother's bed, he rose as quietly as he could, trying not to rustle the sheets of his bunk, snatched his boots from the floor, and tiptoed for the door clad in his shirt with his breeches, sword belt and stockings over his arm.

"Can't sleep?"

Will stopped in mid-step and turned ruefully to face his mother. Her eyes were wide open and looked as though they hadn't been closed in some time.

"No, I can't, so I'm going to go start my chores."

Elizabeth reached from the bed, plucked a vest from a nearby sea chest, and tossed it to him.

"Don't wear yourself out. We have a big day tomorrow."

Will grinned and slipped out the door as Elizabeth lay back down and lay staring at the ceiling - the same view she had seen for most of the night.

* * *

Will dashed down the stairs to the galley. He'd tarred the rails, polished the barrels of the cannons, and helped to hoist the foresails. Unable to find anything else readily available to occupy himself with until Dr Trevelyan awoke and wanted to go over the maps with his mother, he went to see if the cook perhaps had a chore for him, or at least some chatter to wile away his time with. He liked the grizzled seaman with his glinting smile and ragged old wooden leg; it would be almost a shame to farewell the friends he had made on this ship and make their own way to the island. They had met tragedy and betrayal upon these decks, it was true, but they'd met Mr Silver, the doctor, Tai-Huang; so many friends that had helped them through hard times.

"Mr Silver!" Will called as he entered the galley. There was no reply.

He must be in the brig seeing to the needs of the prisoners, he thought with a shiver. He had avoided setting eyes on those men again since the mutiny. He looked for something he could do until the cook came back. A nearby sack caught his eye – the pecans! He could start shelling them now, and when Mr Silver returned he could tell him a few stories over them to make the shelling go faster. Will pulled an overturned bucket over as a makeshift seat and set to work.

Small, round, regular spheres filled his hand as he plunged it into the sack. Surprised, he pulled it out to divulge a handful of gleaming silver shot. Startled, he let it fall hastily back into the sack. _What is it doing here? Did it get mixed up with other cargo?_

Another metallic gleam caught his eye behind the bag of shot. Something wrapped in rags was poking out of its covering; it looked suspiciously like the barrel of a pistol…

He heard a soft tap behind him, and before he could turn around a rough hand caught him by the back of his collar. He found himself staring at the cook, who had a rather forced-looking version of his usual smile on his face, his yellowing teeth dotted here and there with a metallic gleam.

"G'mornin', young Master Will! Quite a day we've got ahead of us! I think it's time I got formally acquainted with that respectable mother o' yours. Be a good lad and pass me th' metal crutch down there on the floor. The sea's a bit choppy this mornin' and we wouldn't want any accidents on the way, now, would we?"

His mock-amiable smile hardened into a threatening leer that Will had never seen upon his face. It filled him with an ice-cold foreboding that slithered right through the very marrow of his bones.


	18. Chapter 17: The Captain

**Chapter 17 - The Captain  
**

"What do you mean, 'hand over the maps'? What right do _you_ have to tell _me_ what to do?"

Dr. Trevelyan was, after all, a man in a noble profession. He looked over his half-moon glasses disdainfully at the besmirched, scarred, scruffy sailor who stood at the doorway brandishing a cutlass at him - a man he was sure he had last seen locked securely away in the brig, pending punishment for mutiny. The doctor's hand subtly sought out the handle of a drawer, in which he knew he kept a loaded pistol. Man of healing or not, when it came down to it, he would shoot this man like a dog if he had to…

"Cap'n's orders. Not your cap'n," he added, registering the doctor's puzzled look as he thought of Bellamy. "Our proper cap'n. He said, 'tell the good doctor 'e can exchange the charts to the island for the safety o' Missus Turner an' her young whelp.'"

The doctor's hand paused on the drawer handle. _Mrs. Turner and young Master Will…_

The sailor looked at him with blank, bloodshot eyes. _Demnable, self-assured, nasty little cur, _he thought to himself. _Give me a chance and I'll blast your brains right out for using a woman and child's lives as pawns… you and your demned "cap'n"…_ His hand left the drawer's handle; he instead picked up a bundle of papers from the centre of the table and strode haughtily to the door, where the ruffian waited complacently, sword in hand.

"Fine. But if I'm to bargain, I shall do it in person." Holding together the edges of his tattered pride, he passed through the door jamb with complete disregard for the menace of the bared weapon. The sailor let him pass unmolested, but followed with the sword's tip hovering at his back. He strolled from the quarterdeck with a leisurely tread, disconcern disguising defiance. His composure faltered as he reached the main deck and saw the strange gathering that had assembled there.

The mutineers were indeed free, and loitered among members of the still-loyal crew, their casual mien belied by the weapons they kept trained on their former crewmates, who watched the scene with numerous variations of disapproval on their respective faces. Mrs. Turner was wearing a sulky look and a thick rope around her wrists. Her son was wearing a matching restraint; they eyed the doctor dolefully as he approached. The reason for their submission was immediately obvious - aimed at them was the largest firearm the doctor had ever laid eyes on. Its barrel was at least as long as a rifle with bayonet attached, and twice as thick, made of solid cast-iron. If the shot it fired was as large as its barrel indicated, the doctor calculated, the pellets must be an inch at least in diameter, more like miniature cannonballs…

The man who held this gargantuan flintlock easily braced against the crook of his arm was just as remarkable, though the doctor had encountered him at least three times a day every day since they had put out to sea, and had never witnessed him in such a threatening pose. He had shed his usual leather apron and kerchief in favour of a moth-eaten frockcoat with a sumptuous watered-silk lining and embroidered lapels, obviously torn - quite literally in places - from the back of a nobleman who had assuredly long since departed the world at this devil's hand. An equally worn-out tricorner adorned with once-costly, now bedraggled ostrich plumes sat upon his black head of locks, only lightly grizzled here and there with a hint of grey. The face, though slightly eroded by wild weather and hardship and half-hidden by a scraggy black beard, was quite handsome in an unrefined way, with a beak-like hooked nose, hard lines and shrewd eyes which had been until now dulled somewhat with false cheer, but which were now strikingly evident. Most obvious upon his person, however, was the stout metal peg that protruded from his rent-off left trouser leg in place of his previous wooden stump; it was hung with rows of leather which were studded with pieces of shot, the reels terminating at his hip where a contraption looking somewhat like the inner workings of a clock was mounted, a crank sticking from its side as though the man were a large wind-up child's toy. But what a monstrous figure this was, lacking all the endearing joviality this countenance had once possessed; seeing the doctor appraise his weapon and its bearing on the Turners apprehensively, the former ship's cook and quartermaster, 'Long' John Silver, bared his namesake metallic smile in a wolfish grin.

"Quite a different course I'm servin' up now, ain't it, my good doctor, Your Highness." The last words were interlaced with mockery. "Didn't you know?" Silver's perceptive, crafty eyes had noticed a flicker of surprise pass over the doctor's face. "This here is Madame Turner, now drink-dispenser and slop-clearer at the Benbow Inn in Port Royal, but once, she was Pirate Lord – or rather, Pirate Lady - of the South China Sea, and the faithful wife of the former Davy Jones himself."

"Bloody cur," Elizabeth spluttered through clenched teeth, and Doctor Trevelyan silently agreed with her. "I'm still Pirate Lord, still his faithful wife, and he's still the new Davy Jones, so if you think you can-"

"Hush now, poppet," Silver murmured, waggling the barrel of his gun warningly, pointing it at her son; glaring murderously, she was quiet, feeling that old, panic-inducing sense of helplessness wash over her like a king tide. "I think I'm the one who says what you can and can't do; I'm the one who makes the rules. Unless you want bullet holes through that fine skirt o' yours an' your little son's handsome tunic, you'd better play along." His smile widened, looking carnivorous, obviously enjoying his deadly game. Even his voice had changed; more syllables were left in their rightful places, and his former rambling way of speech was replaced with an incisive diatribe. "You were so complacent – you, a lone woman with all your protectors laid low, your husband absent and your lackey lying broken in a sick bed, and you felt safe. You never gave me a second glance. Your little son was fast chums with me. All them things they say about a woman's intuitive powers are obviously false. Be that as it may, I suppose it would be 'gentlemanly' of me to fill in the blanks; I have much information that may interest you." He brandished the gun grandly, enjoying his position of power, taunting them with it.

"First off, how easy it was to get that fool Bellamy to give me a last-minute berth on this ship; I could've carved up our supper's meat with the same bloodstained dirk I used to knife the previous cook in the back, and he'd have never been the wiser." He smirked as the doctor grimaced, looking slightly sick. He had travelled on the _Lusitania_ before, and had known the previous cook. "Then I simply bided me time. Those knuckle-headed crewmates of mine jeopardized everything. They were ruddy impatient; they didn't follow my instructions to speak softly an' lay low, an' they paid the ultimate price for their insubordinance. I promised them positions as princes of the tides once I became king of all the seas – the new Davy Jones. And I will be. Oh yes," he countered Elizabeth's disbelieving shake of her head with a cutting smile. "I will be, for whether you help me or whether you end up floating down to the Locker in little pieces, I shall meet with that lovey-boy of yours sooner or later, and I will cut him down. He had no right to helm the Dutchman. That ship should've been mine. He had that glorious title unwittingly plunged into him, like the stab of a knife." He seemed to appreciate his own irony, savouring the pained expression on Elizabeth's face at the memory.

"I fought hard for that berth, ever since the kraken ripped me other leg off fifteen years ago." He tapped the top of his metal stump; it emitted a muted clang, sounding solid. "I swore that I would stab that bastard's heart one day and take what was due to me; changed me name to suit me purpose, taken from the customized weapon I got made over in the Indies by a master gunsmith. One leg a mite bit longer than the other, if you include it as part of a combined artillery more than six feet in length; a rifle with armour-piercing rounds for a crutch, and a bandolier-tree for a peg leg, with a mechanism that can reload the chamber in a mere three seconds, giving me an unprecedented twenty shots per minute. Only a gattling gun can rival such firepower. It was my weapon of choice for me personal vendetta; cost me a small fortune, but worth it, it was. What is a fortune when you can have the whole of the seven seas to play with? I never was one to sit upon me heels; I been a gentleman of fortune all me life, always preparing to take me next step along th' path to glory, always following a bigger prize. I assembled a crew with almost as much grand ambition as meself, rendered 'em faithful with promises of fail-proof success, hunted down the devil himself across the seven seas, and what happens? You, and your little soirée of Pirate Council friends, beat me to the kill, and your boy love puts a blade in the heart that was meant to be mine for the taking." His expression had turned from swarmy to stormy; it was a frightening look, one that previously could not have been imagined upon the well-meaning cook's friendly features. "But I'll do the same soon enough. As soon as you hand me those charts with the location of that island on 'em."

He looked expectantly at Dr. Trevelyan. His finger hovered over the trigger of his firearm. Elizabeth pulled her son back, trying to shield him; she stared down the barrel of the gun stoically, her face set, prepared to give what she had to to save the ones she loved…

Dr. Trevelyan bit his lip indecisively, looked apologetically at Elizabeth, then took a step forward, offering the bundle of maps. Long John leered triumphantly at Elizabeth's horror-struck expression – what she saw was the handing-over of her husband's life - and leaning the butt of the gun against his hip, its barrel still pointed at Elizabeth, he leaned over to take them.

In that moment, Will saw what he had been waiting for; he saw Silver's glance shift from him and his mother to the maps in the doctor's outstretched hand. In that precise moment, he darted forward, going for the unnoticed bucket of water that was on the deck nearby, left from when he himself had swabbed it that morning. Long John perceived him and brought his hand back to bear on his weapon, locking its muzzle on the boy dashing headlong towards him; but he moved too slow to keep up with the lad's actions. Will swung the bucket at him; it knocked the gun off-target, its load of shot whizzing harmlessly through the rigging; in the next second, both Long John and his weapon were doused with soapy water. Without pausing, Will dove forward, snatched the maps from the doctor's hand, and flew like a shot across the deck, heading for the stern. Long John, recovering his balance and cursing, whirled the crank at his side and brought the butt of the pistol to it; the series of cranks delivered a new load of shot into the gun's chamber in three seconds, just as he had promised. As Elizabeth and the doctor pounced upon him too late, he locked the muzzle on Will's receding back and pulled the trigger-

It clicked dully. The water had dampened the gun's powder; it would not catch and fire.

Cursing the mere boy who had thwarted him, Silver whirled and fell upon the doctor, who had been lunging for his firearm, bringing the weapon down upon the man's head; he went down with a groan. The barrel came swinging back and struck Elizabeth, temporarily stunning her. She heard a buzzing in her ears and her vision blurred. When she recovered and managed to look up, Silver was standing over her with a snarl and an upraised knife, his firearm slung uselessly across his back. He considered her for a moment, during which she glowered back at him; then he turned away, deciding a woman who had been knocked about and with her hands tied wasn't much of a threat. As she struggled to raise herself up on her bound arms, her head smarting, Silver lumbered off, moving with an alarming ease and dexterity on his mis-matched limbs, in the direction Will had gone.

"You rest there for a moment, Your Majesty," the ruffian said over his shoulder, "whilst I retrieve your delightful offspring. Then we'll settle down to business." His tone left no doubt in Elizabeth's mind as to the nature of this 'business'; it would be more than just threats. And he would be after more than just maps – she thought of the chest in her cabin and the key around her neck, knowing that if Long John threatened her son's life again, she wouldn't be able to defy him any longer, she would be forced to give him what he wanted, even though she knew very well what it would cost her in return… _it would cost her her husband…_

Elizabeth regained her feet and glanced about. Dr. Trevelyan was still down, a broad, but shallow cut upon his forehead and his glasses knocked askew. He'd keep for now; her prime concern was the life of her son. She wrestled with the bonds around her hands; one of Silver's allies, freshly freed from the brig, solved her dilemma by rushing her. Remembering what Tai-Huang had taught her, her body moving from physical memory faster than her mind could command her, she side-stepped the cutlass blade that came down and kicked out at his ankles, felling him easily; he hit his head on the deck with an audible thunk, knocked out cold. She snatched up the fallen blade and brandished it expertly. The other mutineers had considered a tied-up and bruised woman to be fair game; seeing her turn upon them menacingly with a handful of razor steel, perhaps remembering the cuts she had dealt them before and the men she had felled in the last mutiny, they lost heart and scattered like crabs before a sea eagle's outstretched claws. Elizabeth wasted no time in sawing awkwardly at her ropes, finally managing to free her by-now grazed and bloodied hands; then she raced across the deck after Will and Long John Silver.

She reached the quarter deck without seeing a sign of either of them and glanced around from the vantage point, searching frantically for any sign of him, pleading with unseen entities for him to be unharmed…

She heard a rope creaking under weight above her and looked up. She could just see Will perched upon the crow's nest, tinkering madly with the pistol she had insisted he carry in a hidden holster strapped above his knee; below him, Silver was swarming up the rigging at a fearful speed, the heaviness of his weaponry not seeming to bother him at all, his knife clenched firmly between his teeth. Elizabeth hovered fearfully. Will didn't seem to be able to fire his pistol – the powder in his own gun must've gotten wet when he hurled the bucket of water – and as soon as he came within throwing-range of Silver's knife, he would be fair game… She had nothing on hand save the sword, no projectile weapon that would take Silver down from this distance before he reached the crow's nest…

The idly-spinning helm caught her eye as did something beyond it, in the water before the ship's prow; the water was moving at a diagonal to the current, disrupted by something below its surface… _shoals…_

She remembered a plan she had concocted long ago to outrun pirates, a plan that had gone unused as the Black Pearl had caught up with the _Interceptor…_

She rushed to the helm, spinning it hard to starboard. The Lusitania turned; the shoals loomed ominously before her. As she sped closer and closer to them, Long John Silver climbed higher and higher, the distance between him and Will swiftly closing.

* * *

Simon Bellamy had had enough. Two mutinies. _Two_. It was impossible, but it was nevertheless happening – and to him, no less. It was unbelievable, preposterous, uncultured – it just wasn't what _civilized_ men did.

So he'd been smart. He had taken precautions. It had been surprisingly simpler than he had thought it would be. No one had paid him any attention since the first mutiny, anyway. It was outrageous. They had left him his old quarters, but they had completely reorganized his ship – putting the Turners in the doctor's quarters, the doctor in the Turner's quarters. The doctor and the Turners, they were the ones who had usurped his authority, the mutineers be damned. The doctor, he had thought, had been a man of honour, not one to go against the establishment. And those Turners – he rued the day he had ever set eyes on them. Nothing but trouble and disaster they had brought with them, hordes of brigands and disloyal behaviour. It must be because of them. He had never had such calamity on board his ship as he had upon this voyage. His ship be damned, it wasn't even his ship any more, he was done with this entire cruise, he would leave this band of murderers and associates of murderers to themselves next chance he got. So he had stealthily sneaked supplies into a jollyboat and let it float tethered behind the ship, a small getaway vessel at the ready. And it had been ready when the brigands had resurfaced; as soon as he had caught sight of bare cutlasses and glinting flintlocks through the windows of his quarters, he had shimmied uncomfortably down the tow rope, sustaining rope burn on his hands and dunking his coattails in the water in the process, and hauled off in his own private rowboat, heading in the direction of the nearest outlying island. He wasn't sorry to see his former ship's masts dwindling before him as he rowed, pulling awkwardly at the oars (it wasn't a captain's usual lot to be made to do this menial work, and he wasn't terribly good at it).

He was even less sorry when he heard a shot echoing out to him across the water. He pulled at the oars with new enthusiasm.

* * *

The day that had dawned was bleak in more ways than one. A dank grey mist hung over the water, making the more superstitious of men aboard, even some who had long since traded their morals for blood and gold, to cross themselves as a supernatural safeguard; more of them repeated the action when O'Brien was reported as having gone missing in the night and his flask of grog, empty and sloshed over the planks, was discovered at the stern, just next to the rail.

Some of the more cowardly crew members began to whisper among themselves: All those messages sent to the Locker, one couldn't play with fire near a powder magazine and not expect it to blow up in one's face… giving him so much warning before they tried to strike at him, drawing him out, it was little more than provoking him, which was sure to be suicide… with all the foolhardy steps Cap'n Silver had taken, there was little doubt as to what could be responsible for O'Brien's sudden, inexplicable disappearance… after all, this was a man undead, whose very underlings were the waves and tides themselves… even with the kraken long gone, it was said he could command the very sea itself to swallow ships whole…

The first man whom Andersen caught discussing such things was given a swift, resounding backhand across his jaw, and the others were warned that the next man to utter such nonsensical rubbish would have his tongue cut out. The men fell silent, but they eyed each other nervously, their unspoken thoughts nevertheless revealing themselves as a visible fear in their eyes. The man appointed to the crow's nest was doubly diligent, searching for black sails against the horizon.

He was taken as much unawares as the rest of the crew; he knew nothing until the water's surface suddenly exploded beside them as though a cannon had been dropped overboard, except that the surface broken not from above, but from within. Something dark and pointed rose not six feet from their portside like a knife thrust through linen. Taken at first as the gaping mouth of some deep-sea predator, they realized, with a jolt of icy fear sliding into their weaselly black guts, that it was the prow of a ship, adorned in macabre fashion with a grotesque figurehead - a winged Death.

Anamaria, peering at the ship's elegant silhouette through the galley's tiny porthole, breathed out reverently, almost in rapture. "Now that's a ship," she murmured to herself in utmost approval.

The ghost ship rose up at an impossible angle from the depths, then slid serenely forward, drawing parallel with them, moving swiftly and coming to a dead stop when she drew perfectly level with them, bow to stern and stern to bow. The men upon the Walrus' deck gaped in dread-tinged awe; that was just impossible, no ship could move like that, as though the water carried her hither and thither in accordance with her helmsman's very thoughts…

Long had they coveted this ship; long had they known, from promises their captain had made, that it would be theirs one day. But now that they actually faced down the mythical Flying Dutchman, they didn't feel a hint of the self-assured superiority they had cultivated during all these years awaiting the promise's fulfilment; they felt only a horrible, terrifying shudder in the very marrow of their bones.

Some of the braver sailors, readily armed with swords and pistols and led by Andersen himself, approached the rail, scanning the Dutchman's deck for signs of him. They didn't have to look long. A large, black bird sailed through the rigging, easily weaving through the ropes with a hoarse cry, making some of the crew members remember some of the prayers they had been sure they had long since forgotten. The bird fluttered to a halt and perched upon the shoulder of a man they could make out as only a shadow against the glare reflected back at them within the encroaching fog, the ends of a bandanna fluttering like another set of wings at the nape of his neck, causing him to replicate in himself the appearance of his own masthead… a winged denizen of death…

The muzzle of every pistol on deck swivelled upon this figure, powder flaring, fingers poised warily over triggers. All knew that the new Davy Jones was just as invincible as the old one to wounds that would've proved fatal to a mortal man, but perhaps, if they used enough combined fire power…

"On my count!" Andersen declared, raising his sword to signal; fingers clench over triggers as their combined adrenaline rose, knowing their response to the order could be a matter of victory or defeat, life, or… possibly a fate worse than death at the hands of this man, this monster…

Andersen's voice did not reveal any inner misgivings he may have had; his voice did not quaver, as firm as ever as he counted down: "Three, two, on-"

There was the expected deafening rapport, but it didn't flare from the ten-score barrels that pointed at Capt. Will Turner; the rail of the Walrus exploded in a cloud of smoke and splinters, sending the shooters into instant disarray. A second cannon ball shattered a corner of the quarter deck.

"Ha ha, nice shot there!" 'Bootstrap' Bill Turner whooped at the bosun, who was on the other swivel-gun mounted on the Dutchman's quarterdeck, almost hidden from view by the plume of smoke issuing from the just-fired cannon's barrel.

"I have had a fair amount of experience with these things, you remember," the calm, almost laconic voice informed him. Bootstrap chuckled.

"Gibbs was always a fair marksman too. At least the Navy teaches you fellows something right!"

Missiles continued to pound the ship; her crew, caught unawares, their boarding party incapacitated by shrapnel and flying debris, could do little more than flail between the shots, trying to avoid getting their heads crushed in directly by a ball and knowing their ship was being crippled with every new explosion that shook it.

In the galley, Anamaria had thrown her apron over her head to shelter herself from the shower of dust and debris that filtered through the ceiling from the deck above. With every blast, she felt the entire ship tremble and rock in the water. "Bloomin' Hell!" she shrieked between clenched teeth as hunks of blasted wood fell around her.

At last the barrage of cannon balls stopped. An eerie silence followed, during which wood splinters silently rained down on the scene of desolation that had once been the ship's deck; barely a plank of wood above the bilges was still intact. The mast had been mashed to smithereens by several shots and toppled over. Andersen, his usually swarthy cheeks deadly pale and bleeding on one side where splinters were embedded in his face, looked around him in amazement. The ship, _his beautiful ship…_ Capt. Silver had promised it to him as his own once the Dutchman had been taken as the fleet's flagship… and now it was in ruin, far beyond repair…

At least a third of the Walrus' crew had been laid low by the attack. The men who were still able to stagger to their feet did so uncertainly, gazing with glazed eyes at the devastation that had befallen them. No one spoke in this silent scene of grey tones as a combination of dust, powder and mist shrouded the two ships like the curtains of a mausoleum. Suddenly, in the silence, a hollow _thump_ rang through the laden air. It was followed by another, then another; aboard the great predatory ship that had just bludgeoned its unwitting victim into submission, a figure emerged from the mists, proceeded by the ringing footsteps that heralded its approach. The men watch, unmoving, any thoughts left of fight quashed by the sinister sight. The infamous custodian of Davy Jones' Locker, Captain Turner, approached his ship's rail, stepped nimbly upon it, then stepped across the gap between the two ships and onto the Walrus, as easily as other men might walk along a smoothly-cobbled street.

_BLAM!_

Turner's approach swayed to a halt; a shot had pierced him clean through the chest. He rocked backward upon his perch on the rail, then overbalanced, and toppled headlong into the drink. There was a splash as he hit the water, and a heavy silence afterwards. The men closest to the rail hesitantly leaned over to look; there was no sign of anything in the water, not so much as a ripple to show where the body had sank. Andersen, smoking pistol still in hand, stared at the empty air where the man had been seconds ago, and gave a hoarse bark of triumphant, almost delirious laughter. Their spirits restored, the rest of the crew shakily joined it.

That was it? The great Davy Jones felled by a single shot?!…

Suddenly Andersen stopped laughing. The rest of the crew grew abruptly silent as well, straining to hear what he had heard. A sound reached them, like a wave rushing over the shore… but they were miles from the nearest land-

The fog behind them slowly parted. The sound of rushing water increased to a roar; out of the gloom, a huge pillar of water approached, cresting but never toppling and breaking, hanging unnaturally twenty feet up in the air. Atop it stood William Turner, not a drop of moisture from his dip in the ocean still clinging to him, calmly riding the giant wave back towards the ship like a Roman general might have ridden a war chariot, swiftly and smoothly approaching. As the wave approached the ship's exposed hull and began to descend, he leapt; the wave sank into the deck, rending it open like a huge blade in a single blow. A second later, there was a flash of silver within the salt spray; two men fell beneath the twin blades that had swooped down upon them. Capt. Turner landed lightly upon the deck, a bloodied sword in each hand; wordlessly, he approached the clustered, terrified crew like a vengeful wraith. Like an oncoming Grim Reaper with scythe held high…

All thoughts of bravado were long forgotten. Even the bravest and most battle-confident of men backed away, concerned with nothing more than saving their already-battered skins. As the figure in black relentlessly bore down on them, they just as steadily retreated, crowding around the portside rail, futile though it was; there was no escape, nowhere else to go, save backward over the rail and straight down, down to the Locker… either way, it seemed an inevitable fate…

It was then that without warning, a long tentacle shot out of the water, coiled around a man's waist, and plucked him up, screaming and flailing, for a moment before plunging back into the water with him as violently as it had surfaced.

The men were too surprised and too horror-struck to react right away. B-but… they had thought that the kraken was dead…

Another tentacle descended upon them with a swoosh and closed around a pirate; he tried to run, to flail away from its reach, but it caught him up and wrapped around him. The other men realized with a start that they could still see their shipmate through his captor's grasp; the tentacle was transparent, its surface frothing slightly, like a pot of water set over a fire to boil. The tentacle was made of _water_.

The man it held tried to escape; he clawed madly at it, trying to break free. Handfuls of water came away, but to no avail; it was like trying to cut a waterfall with a sword, new liquid welled up to replace what had been lost. Then the tentacle closed around the man's head; he tried to scream, air bubbles issuing from his open mouth. Then he choked, convulsed, and fell limp; the tentacle unwound itself, dropping him wetly upon the deck. He had drowned where he had stood. The men scurried away from the rail, fearful of this new threat. Two of them walked straight into the path of Capt. Turner's blades.

On what was left of the Walrus' deck, pandemonium broke loose.

* * *

_Author's Note: I'll finish it eventually, I swear!_

_Hello again. It's been a long time, I know, and I blame numerous factors. For a start, I am apparently better at starting stories than finishing them. I have been juggling about five stories at once for a while now, and this one fell into neglect - all stories more or less necessarily stop once uni starts up again. But I shall finish this someday. Promise. I've already spent more than a year on this, and I'll be demned if that year of my life goes to waste. We are fast approaching the climax of the tale, so I am more determined than ever to continue it._

_To all those who have hung in there over that year, thank you very much for your patients. To new readers, I hope you enjoy it, old now though it is, and to all readers, stay tuned - there will be more. I swear upon my weaselly black guts, there will be more eventually. Even if it takes another year. ~ W.J.  
_


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